1 week Ago
We can’t deny the suffering in Gaza I disagree with Gali Beh’s opinion that Councilmember Taishya Adams owes an apology for her “blood on our hands” comment. Adams was referring to Israel’s slaughter of the Gazan population which the International Court of Justice and most of the world’s nations have repeatedly called a genocide. Any of us who ignores, denies or rationalizes the suffering in the world has blood on our hands.
Many accept as fact Israel’s generational cries of innocence while ignoring its history of oppression. Israel’s defenders refuse to believe anything that challenges the stories they tell themselves. A year ago, a majority of Israel’s political and military leadership labeled every Gazan a Hamas member and publicly declared their intention to turn Gaza “into an island of ruins.
” Bombing apartment buildings, pulling plugs on incubators and starving people is not self-defense. It is vengeance. Therefore, Adams’ statement is not controversial.
It is compassionate. Lacking context, Beh cites the murder of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, as if that epitomizes the Israel-Palestine tragedy, while ignoring fifty-seven years of consistently cruel and illegal occupation and the genocide Adams had the courage to acknowledge. In light of the tragic deaths of Israelis on October 7, and the ongoing deaths of Palestinians, here is a not-uncommon example of Israel’s behavior: on Saturday morning, December 27, 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead by bombing the Gaza Strip, simultaneously violating the Jewish Sabbath and a cease-fire agreement with Hamas.
Two weeks later, on another Sabbath day, Israeli officials blocked life-saving supplies from entering Gaza, insisting they could not violate the Sabbath. Easily surpassing October 7’s Al Aqsa Flood, during Operation Cast Lead Israel killed 1,400 people, including 300 children. Richard Forer, Lafayette Selling democracy for personal gain Why are we selling our democracy to billionaires? Do they care about anything other than power and their own financial interests? I am thinking of Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame and Patrick Soon-Shiong, and family, who decided not to make endorsements of Kama Harris for President in The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times respectively.
Perhaps they didn’t want to endanger their financial interests in case Donald Trump won the election, as he did. Bezos’ interest is his company Blue Origin which aims to provide launch services for national security rockets over the next five years, and there is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who has military contracts including Star Link. President-elect Trump has asked him to co-chair a new agency that would include overseeing and regulating Musk’s contracts.
Who else sells out our democracy for their personal gain? Catharine Harris, Boulder Servicemen can’t have died in vain Freedom of speech, the right to vote, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and the peaceful transfer of power. These are just some of the rights and freedoms that the American system of government has provided. Trump and the MAGA crowd are determined to get rid of them.
If they succeed, the 1.2+ million brave American servicemen and women who died to protect these and other freedoms since 1775 will have died in vain. Think about it.
Peter Ellsworth, Loveland.
