Mamdani stands with us Jews who oppose genocide
Manhattan: Last month, The News reported on a poll of American Jews. Sixty-one percent thought that Israel committed war crimes in its two-year murderous rampage in Gaza. Another 39% called it genocide. I am one of those Jews who believes he watched genocide at the hands of the Israelis.
For the better part of two years, I have watched helplessly as Israel destroyed Gaza and made almost 2 million Palestinians homeless. My feelings of impotence were exacerbated by the U.S. government, which supplied the bombs Israel used in the name of the American people. I was powerless to affect any change.
Now we have a incoming mayor who believes that he witnessed genocide as well. Only, he is not powerless to do anything. I am 100% in favor of NYC refusing to invest any taxpayer money to support anything Israeli. The News calls the intention to boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) antisemitic (“Zohran Mamdani and antisemitism,” editorial, Nov. 6). If the people of NYC think Israel is guilty of war crimes, what should they do to affect change? Write letters to the Voice of the People?
Two days after the election, The News demanded that Mamdani change his strongly held position. The News bandies about words like unity at the same time that it divides us. I, Steven Davies, demand that The News stop publishing Voicers’ letters that express Islamophobic sentiments! I demand that The News stop calling anyone who is against Israeli genocide antisemitic. I demand that The News cool its heels, sit back for a moment and give the guy a chance. Steven Davies
Otherizing hysterics
Fresh Meadows: I’m surprised and not surprised by the racial overtones by individuals after Mamdani’s election. This is the ninth mayor in my lifetime, and I go back to Mayor John Lindsay in the ’70s. I’ve seen the worst of the worst and the best of the best in NYC. The crying and complaining about Mamdani is comical at the moment. Real New Yorkers are built different. We’ve always been able to adapt to our surroundings no matter who is in the mayor’s office. I lived through two blackouts, heroin and crack epidemics, MLK and the Crown Heights riot, Superstorm Sandy, 9/11, COVID-19, etc., and life goes on. They say New Yorkers are built tough, but not by the chronic complaints I see people writing to you about. Gregory Coston
Excessive focus
Rye Brook, N.Y.: To Voicer Céline Secada: You claim that Israel has committed the worst atrocity in this century despite that it has been fighting a terrorist organization that started the war. In 2004, 300,000 non-Muslim minorities were massacred in Darfur, Sudan. In the current civil war, 14 million Sudanese have been displaced, and some estimates place the death toll at more than 400,000. What about Syria, Yemen, Myanmar and Ukraine? Your hatred of Israel prevents you from having a rational understanding of world events. Demes Poulos
Costly capitulation
Brooklyn: New York’s DEC has contorted the facts about the huge fracked gas pipeline, the Northeast Supply Enhancement project, proposed by the Oklahoma-based energy company Williams. The DEC denied it in 2018, 2019 and 2020 because of its threat to the health of New Yorkers and to local marine life. But its revised analysis allowed Gov. Hochul to approve the pipeline. Hochul has said she cares deeply about affordability, but the cost of this multi-billion-dollar project will fall squarely on National Grid’s customers. She has said she cares about the law, but this project would violate the state mandate to transition from fracked gas to renewable energy and laws protecting us from pollution. She says she cares about energy reliability, but we already have plenty of fracked gas in National Grid’s downstate territory, and there will be even less demand for it in the future. Talk is cheap, but pipelines certainly aren’t. Sara Gronim
A losing calculus
Brooklyn: At COP30, there’s “one glaring exception,” our own president (“California steps in as Trump skips climate summit in Brazil,” Nov 7). President Trump abhors losing, especially to China. Yet, as both countries roar forward, assembling energy-gulping AI data centers, China also rushes forward with solar and wind farms. China now meets 36% of its energy needs renewably; the U.S., 24%. More tellingly, China now has three times the gigawatt capacity that we have for clean, renewable energy, and is barreling ahead with more. Meanwhile, Trump’s been eviscerating our major solar and wind initiatives, leveling our Environmental Protection Agency — and oh, deleting all climate words from government documents! One problem: His loser behavior is taking us all down with him. Hochul’s gone down especially hard, mimicking Trump’s energy idiocy. By approving the NESE gas pipeline, she’s compromised our harbor’s water and raised our utility bills for decades into the future. Joanne Boger
Unprincipled ideals
Bronx: With all the pardons our president has been bestowing, I guess the last two lines of our National Anthem should be changed to “The land of the freed and the home of the knave.” Betty Baumel
Nocturnal expressions
Sebastian, Fla.: Perhaps if Triple D (that’s Drowsy Diaper Don) stopped watching late-night TV and then tweeting his vitriol about it at 3 a.m., he would be able to stay awake during the day. Harold Lichtman
Predictable petulance
Hicksville, L.I.: I’m really enjoying the tantrums thrown by those on the left over the shutdown cave-in by Democrats. Correct me if I’m wrong, but was it not the Democrats who put the sunset clause on the “Unaffordable” Care Act, a law that no Republicans supported? A law, by the way, which stuck it to the working class and benefitted the insurance companies. The Democrats had four years under the Biden administration to correct that provision and chose not to. Why? Your party lost an election, and as a famous man on your side said, “Elections have consequences.” But as is always the case, the party of the left behaves like petulant little brats who had their candy taken away when they lose. As for SNAP benefits, the Democrats repeatedly voted no on opening the government, thus denying resumption of those benefits. It’s on the Democrats, not the Republicans. John Gelormino
Height of hypocrisy
Bronx: To Voicer Rich Buttermark: You say that 10% of Kamala Harris voters haven’t gotten over her loss and are crying? How typical of a Trump voter who doesn’t remember Jan. 6, six years of Trump, and that 100% of his base still refuses to accept that he lost. Those who live in lies and denial should never try to mock people who live in truth and reality. Carmelo Burgos
Coming to a close
Henderson, Nev.: Nancy Pelosi’s career in Congress has been nothing short of remarkable. Let’s all wish her well as she begins a new chapter of her life. And in her honor, I’ll have a scoop of her delicious chocolate blackout cake from Jeni’s Ice Cream! David Tulanian
Genetics genius
San Francisco: Perhaps the most important scientific discovery of the past 100 years was the double-helix structure of DNA. James Watson, who co-authored with Francis Crick the landmark 1953 article in the journal Nature that first proposed it, died last week at age 97. The genius of their paper lay not just in discerning DNA’s structure (aided by their colleague Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction images), but also in their observation that “the specific pairing [of nucleotide bases] we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material,” explaining how genes are inherited. Watson’s 1968 memoir “The Double Helix” was later made into a movie starring Jeff Goldblum. Stephen A. Silver
RIP
Greenville, S.C.: I’m sorry about the death of actress Diane Keaton last month. She was famous for many great films since the 1970s, such as “First Wives Club,” “Father of the Bride,” “Mad Money” and “Something’s Gotta Give.” She was very famous for her 1977 Academy Award win for the movie “Annie Hall” opposite Woody Allen. I was also truly upset to hear that she suffered from bulimia and skin cancer, which was probably the cause of her untimely death. I deeply enjoyed her performance in “Something’s Gotta Give” as the playwright Erica Berry, who meets Jack Nicholson’s character through her daughter at their beach house. So sorry to hear about the untimely death of this Hollywood legend. Steven Hawkins
