It's mighty presumptuous to tell the members of the Brattleboro Area Jewish Community they are demonstrating "white fragility" when expressing their fears in the current political environment.
I believe equating the slogans of "Black Lives Matter" and "From the River to the Sea" and the movements behind them is a false equivalency.
BLM is positive, life-affirming, and inclusive. FTRTTS is negative, hateful, and exclusive.
Israel's attacks on Hamas in Gaza are horrific, overreaching, clumsy, vengeful, and probably illegal, but they are not genocidal in origin or, I believe, intent. Hamas and its supporters' attacks on Israel and Jews are expressly exactly that.
Palestinians and Israelites (the latter many returned from voluntary emigration after being driven out of Europe and elsewhere as well as involuntary exile by Arabs earlier in the last century) are indigenous people of the eastern Mediterranean region who have been pitted against each other by imperialist nations of the East and West. They may have more in common than not.
To be anti-Zionist and not be antisemitic is to walk a fine line. Too often too many cross it.
Jean Anne Kiewel
Brattleboro
This letter to the editor was submitted to The Commons.