By GEORGE KYRALA 
Los Alamos

I am very upset by Rabbi Shlachter’s mail to the Los Alamos Daily Post (link), it is reprehensible and hurts many feelings beyond misstating some facts.

The comment and feeling expressed by a Rabbi “to erase expressions from some people’s comments and aspirations on the underpass tunnel” is racist. Erasing people and their feeling just because you feel “repugnant” to an idea that expresses freedom for an abused nation is so undemocratic, uncivilized, unbecoming, and inhumane. That feeling may reflect, and may explain, the total abuse that is been inflicted on innocent Palestinian people by Israel’s government. Erasing a country and people because you want to steal their land based on some mythical belief is not reasonable. No one can erase the aspiration of people to be free from Genocide, from occupation, from daily humiliation, and from daily destruction of their homes.

Rabbi Slachter is amusing, declaring Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East! How about the democracy in Lebanon, Kuwait and even Iraq, to name a few. Lebanese democracy for example represents, not perfectly, almost every religion as members of the parliament. No equivalent representation in Israel. Israeli democracy is like the Mafia electing their representatives and not represent all the people they rule (they represent some). That Israeli, “vibrant democracy”, depends on our Billions of tax dollars and tax free bonds, declares any one they want as target for murder or bombing. They just blew up two universities yesterday and killed one of the presidents, a notable Physicist.

Whether Rabbi Shlachter likes it or not, Free Palestine is an aspiration for tens of millions of Palestinians, and many others in neighboring nations. The aspirations cannot, and will not, be erased by racist feelings. Many in nations worldwide feel a spiritual need to Free Palestine from Bondage. I doubt if there is one Christian in Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt that does not agree with Free Palestine.

Many people are afraid of being labelled antisemitic for disapproving of Israel’s savage attack on Palestinians quoting “internationally defined term”. That term was as usual, again, misappropriated by the few countries that approved it for the benefit of Israel. No one asked other semitic people (Like me a semitic Christian, or other Moslem semitic people) if they approve of that definition. We do not.

Criticizing Israel’s leaders and government for their actions is legitimate and is never anti-Jewish nor antisemitic. Even many semitic Jews agree with me. When Netanyahu declares that Israel is “from the river to the sea”, pro Israelis do not call him out as a racist but when the same is expressed by Palestinians it is furiously called out.

“Free Palestine” does not imply the “dissolution of Israel”, but it implies that Israel should act civil and live withing Internationally recognized borders established by the USA through a United Nations resolution. The Palestinian Authority already accepted Israel’s existence many years ago, but not in their occupied land.

Please keep the “Free Palestine” writings and do not censor innocent free speech. A speech that does not threaten nor incite except in some people’s mind. Please do not be persuaded by people that want to erase you because your existence “hurts their feelings” or of “perceived threat”. I get scared and worried when our governments start censoring our speech.

Thank you.

Some literature that is not Israeli Propaganda:

1-Please see “Jimmy Carter on Israeli apartheid” video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y23V6PLTCMw
2-https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/president-carter-discusses-the-resolution-of-the-arab-israeli-conflict
3-“from Beirut to Jerusalem” Thomas L. Freidman.
4-“The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” Israeli historian Ilan Pappe