Time to stop hating on people

(Re: "Just Who Are You Calling An Antisemite,"  Sept. 14.)

To the Editor:

In the ongoing saga of Peter Wolf and his unremitting animus to the Jewish State, I am reminded that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck than we can presume that it is a duck and you, Peter Wolf, psychologist and self-described humanist, are indeed the anti-Semite you insist you are not.

Being Jewish does not inoculate someone from the possibility of being an antisemite. The Jewish people in our 2000-year history, since our forced expulsion from our land, have known Jews who have identified with their aggressor.  Self-hating Jews you might call them.

The 21^st century is no different. How else can I account for 22 percent of young American Jews, Mr. Wolf’s figures, believing that Israel is committing, ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian people?  Interestingly, a 2022 census carried out by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, showed a high growth rate among Palestinians, an increase of 2.4 percent from the previous year. That’s not counting the growth of the Arab population in Israel proper.  As Israeli citizens, they share the same health care system, beds, nurses and doctors with their Jewish counterparts and a very high percentage of medical providers are in fact Arab.

How does one reconcile this accusation of genocide, with no pictures, no evidence, no facts with Palestinian data that shows a robust, continuous population growth? Ethnic cleansing and Genocide, indeed!

While I am outraged by Peter’s lies I am puzzled as to why the editor of the Riverdale Press finds it necessary to platform and amplify these lies. If one were to write a letter to this paper charging another ethnic group with some fanciful, unsubstantiated negative press meant to destroy by defamation its intended target while gaslighting the rest of us, would the editor of The Riverdale Press feel obliged to print the “fake news?”

One is entitled to their opinion not to have their opinion necessarily printed.  After all, which editorial department does not make use of this prerogative, what to include, what to leave out?  Finally, I am weary of seeing and hearing Israel’s legitimacy being perpetually questioned, often with the proviso, “
“Of course Israel has a right to exist.”

That’s most generous, but I don’t see Russia’s existence or legitimacy challenged irrespective of how many rocket strikes on schools, hospitals, apartment complexes Russia is guilty of.  Syria is still a sovereign state though it has killed nearly a million of its own citizens, and hideously tortured countless others in dingy cellars and other centers of torture. There are many more countries on this earth where cruelty is common, and life is exceedingly cheap. In Israel, by contrast, life is valued above all else.  When Israel must fight back attacks on its citizens, it goes out of its way to avoid civilian casualties.

It’s time for The Riverdale Press to stop using Israel as in a proverbial pingpong match, with anything positive about Israel met with toxic half truths and outright lies, the following week. Giving voice to these voices meant to defame and destroy the Jewish State and the 6 million indigenous Jewish men, women, and children who call Israel home makes one complicit in any resultant consequences.

Isaac Geld