LEYDEN, MASS.-The anti-Israel March 4 Brattleboro ballot question calls Israel an "apartheid regime."
It defines the million Israeli Holocaust survivors and the million, dark-skinned Jews forcibly expelled from Arab countries as "settler colonizers" even though they were granted a state by the United Nations in 1947 and legally purchased their properties just the same way we do in this country. The ballot question bemoans money that the U.S. gives to Israel for self-defense, yet ignores the $600 million that the U.S. annually gives to Palestinians.
The article calls for justice and equality for "all people," but singles out only the Jewish state for vilification.
The holy places of all religions are protected. The Baháʼí of Israel, who were severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel. Ahmadi Muslims, persecuted in Pakistan, are safe.
Because of affirmative action in Israeli universities, Arabs make up 50% of the health care sector, even though they comprise only 20% of the overall population. Unlike Black people in apartheid South Africa, Arabs use the same restaurants, public transport, and swimming pools.
All Israeli signs are in Arabic, as well as Hebrew. Israeli hospitals treat everyone, including thousands of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.
There is no gender apartheid in Israel, as there is in Muslim countries. Palestinian gays escape to Israel so they will not be killed. In Iran, gays are hanged or stoned to death.
The supposed "apartheid wall" was built to protect Israelis from Palestinian terrorism after more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered and thousands injured in the second intifada, not on account of racism. The Gaza blockade was a response to unrelenting terrorism and rocket attacks after Israel withdrew from the territory in 2005.
These cruel accusations of Israel's supposed oppression and apartheid against Palestinians ignore the truth that they are, instead, responses to widespread and unrelenting murders and threats to murder Israelis.
In Gaza, Hamas - whose charter calls for the total destruction of Israel - uses civilians as human shields. Hamas started the current war, perpetuates it, and could end it.
Over the past few decades, alone, Israeli hospitals have treated thousands of Syrian refugees and Iraqi women who suffered sanctioned violence. They saved the life of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and treated the grandniece of terrorist Ismail Haniyeh. This is hardly how a racist, genocidal, apartheid nation acts.
A million Muslim Uyghurs are in concentration camps in China. Hundreds of Ethiopians have been killed at the Saudi border. In Iran, women are raped, tortured, and imprisoned for showing their hair. In Africa, gays and Christians are killed, and slavery is common. In North Korea, 200,000 political prisoners face torture and execution. Russia targets journalists and kills dissenters.
Turkey oppresses Kurdish minorities. Palestinians living in Lebanon have no rights. Yet Israel is singled out for outrageous accusations of apartheid while real human rights abuses everywhere else in the world are ignored.
I work, shop, and eat in Brattleboro, and it feels increasingly unfriendly. This initiative does nothing for the town, will not affect world affairs, and will promote fear and divisiveness.
Rhonda Wainshilbaum
Leyden, Mass.
This letter to the editor was submitted to The Commons.
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