To the Editor:

Martin, your arguments against the Gaza Palestinians surviving at all is really an argument that their humanity is irrelevant because they follow the “wrong God.” For Israel, the Palestinian Wars are religious wars of entitlement masquerading as political conflict.

Israel is entitled to defend itself, and October 7 was a grotesque terrorist act by Palestinian Hamas. The taking of civilian hostages is a war crime. But the explicit Netanyahu response is that all Muslims in Gaza must die. Israel herded civilian Gazans to Rafah and now propose to slaughter them there, Hamas or not. To object is not to be “pro-Palestinian” and certainly not “pro-Hamas,” or anti-Israel. It is to recognize that civilian persons of whatever origin are being targeted for famine and death. It too is a war crime.

If you look at maps of the area since 1947, you will see a systematic occupation and annexation of most of what was Palestine into an ever-expanding Israel. Many Israeli Jews believe that the country belongs to them by right because: they occupied it first, over 1400 years ago before the Jewish Diaspora to Europe, and Judaeo-Christian roots and the Holocaust genocide entitle them as “the chosen people” to the Biblical land of Judah, exclusively and in perpetuity. No matter that Muslim Palestinians have occupied the land for 1400 years since then.

I urge you to go to this site to consider the views of one Jew on the current situation. https://www.transcend.org/tms/2024/05/the-shoah/

I have been following the Trump Election Fraud trial in NYC. The issue is whether the payment, made from Trump’s personal funds and labeled “legal expenses” to avoid identification as hush money payments, violated NY law as a campaign contribution to influence the outcome of the 2016 general election. I wouldn’t guess at the verdict.

But we got a first-hand glimpse of some of the people with whom Trump surrounds himself. Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen in Trump mob-speak revealing how he covered for Trump’s consistent avoidance of responsibility for his many transgressions, David Pecker’s “catch and kill journalism,” the Greek Chorus of Republican congressional sycophants condemning our justice system on Trump’s behalf, and the number of convicted persons in his circle, many working his 2024 reelection campaign.
The sad surprise is that so many people in our country, many of whom claim high, religiously inspired behavioral standards for themselves and prepare to impose them on us all, excuse and even celebrate the immoral and unethical underbelly of TrumpWorld.

Nearly all the people I know say they believe that integrity, respect, honesty, and honor matter in relationships. That standards of decency should instruct behavior. That scumbag conduct is not admirable. Some of them are MAGA. I wonder how they process TrumpWorld as the future of our country.

Kelly Scoles
Fillmore, Ca.