DUMMERSTON-Kate Casa's response to John Ungerleider's letter concerning local debate about the horrific state of affairs in Gaza definitely crossed the civility line from my perspective.
Instead of simply staying with her defensible points about Israeli occupation and military assault on Palestinians and the intractability of the conflict, she chose to engage in a gratuitous personal assault on John.
Her comments disparaging his entire career, one dedicated to transforming conflict and bringing warring parties together to further peace, were lamentable at best, inexcusable at worst.
Those demeaning and dismissive comments by Ms. Casa have no place in the current discourse that is too often fraught with animosity and vitriol and ad hominem attacks.
A saying I heard recently is: "Debate ideas, not people." I think this ethos would serve us all well in the current climate and allow us to disagree civilly without resorting to vitriolic personal attacks on a highly respected community member.
Bill Conley
Dummerston
This letter to the editor was submitted to The Commons.
This piece, published in print in the Voices section or as a column in the news sections, represents the opinion of the writer. In the newspaper and on this website, we strive to ensure that opinions are based on fair expression of established fact. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, The Commons is reviewing and developing more precise policies about editing of opinions and our role and our responsibility and standards in fact-checking our own work and the contributions to the newspaper. In the meantime, we heartily encourage civil and productive responses at [email protected].