My last post addressed two letters in the New Bedford Guide concerning Zionism. One clearly defended it, while another by my friend Betty Ussach only sounded like it. I have known Betty for many years, worked with her on social justice issues, and, while I may not have been the only person to misread her intentions, I should have given her much more credit for what should have been read as a principled objection to Israel’s violence in Gaza, not the opposite. Another letter she published in the New York Daily News leaves no doubt as to where she stands. Betty, again, I’m really sorry.
While I am apologizing, the New Bedford Guide did eventually publish my response. As uncomfortable as the issue may be for some to confront, covering vital public discussions that have otherwise been banished from the local papers is an important function of the press. Anyone who, even belatedly or reluctantly, publishes unpopular views on the war in Gaza or Zionism is doing an important public service. I hope the NB Guide will keep it up because the other local news outlets aren’t.
While to some people Gaza may be somebody else’s war — a topic made radioactive because of cynical accusations of “antisemitism” or something having nothing to do with our national priorities — without American bombs, naval fleets, intelligence sharing, missile defense systems, vetoes at the UN, and cumulatively hundreds of billions of dollars of military aid to Israel, neither Israel’s Apartheid system nor their genocidal war on Palestinians would be possible. And everybody knows it — most of all the vast Israel lobby.
At some “Walter Cronkite moment” in the future, with almost every international body condemning the war and Israel’s Apartheid system, Americans are going to finally realize that pumping billions after billions to prop up a nationalist supremacist state is simply throwing bad money after bad.
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