Biased media runs cover for Israeli atrocities
Ambler, Pa.: Corporate state media and politicians describe what Israel has done in Gaza (photo) as a war rather than the slaughter and starvation of imprisoned Christian and Muslim refugees. They characterize a prison outbreak as an invasion, as if the people imprisoned in Gaza weren’t driven off their land during the Nakba of 1948; that peaceful demonstrations called the Great March of Return were stopped by Israeli snipers in 2018-19.
They trumpeted unsubstantiated allegations of baby-killing and sexual violence by Hamas on Oct. 7 while downplaying substantial evidence of sexual violence and torture of Palestinians by Israeli forces. It reminds one that Black men were once seen as predators in America while white men raped Black women and lynched Black men with impunity. They are quiet about Israel’s long-term support for Hamas and warnings it had prior to Oct. 7. They don’t mention the Arab Peace Initiative. Why does the media call those who protest apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide “pro-Palestinian”? Aren’t they simply human beings with a conscience, neither “pro” nor “anti” any tribe, religion or nation? White people who believed in human and democratic rights for all during the Civil Rights era were called “N-lovers.” American Christians believed slavery was biblical. Nothing has changed. Evangelicals today believe that it’s righteous for Israel, founded and led by non-religious people, to rob, oppress and kill its neighbors.
Why do many Americans ignore, minimize or excuse the violence the ruling class has dealt to innocent people around the world? Corporate media, in a nation ranked 55th in the world for press freedom, peddles false narratives, minimizes our crimes and publishes without challenge lies by government officials, politicians and those paid to shape public opinion. It has become the voice of the ruling class, a mouthpiece for monsters, and the heralds of the gods of war. Rob Baker
Partial quote
Williamsville, N.Y.: Israel’s foes don’t have a leg to stand on. How do we know? They advance anti-Israel arguments that are patently and demonstrably false because the truth doesn’t support their positions. For example, Voicer Michele P. Brown misquoted former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. His actual quote was: “They [Arabs] only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country.” Brown deliberately left out the first part to make it appear that Ben-Gurion was admitting theft. This is false. He was referring to the unfortunate and false Arab perspective. Israel is fighting a seven-front war of self-defense against its mortal enemies. Brown and her fellow travelers are trying to pile on, but they only have the ammunition of falsehoods. Trying to kick the country while it’s down is morally bankrupt. Daniel H. Trigoboff
Pro-state terror
Bronx: To Voicer Rob Weissbard: You say that Mahmoud Khalil wholeheartedly supports Hamas and Hezbollah. Show me where he has said that. You, on the other hand, wholeheartedly support a country that bombed an American navy ship, the USS Liberty, during 1967’s Six-Day War, killing 34 and wounding 171. W. Twirley
In defense of life
Bedford, N.Y.: Khalil, students and thousands of ordinary people throughout the world are not celebrating the killings of men, women and children on Oct. 7. They’re protesting the slaughter of men, women and children by the Israeli army since Oct. 8, 2023 — to date, more than 60,000 dead, including 17,000 babies and children, thousands buried under the rubble and thousands more taken hostage and disappeared in Israeli prisons. Céline Secada
No clean hands
Sunnyside: To Voicer Toby F. Block: I don’t think it was accurate to say that “400,000-700,000 Palestinians left Palestine.” The late, great Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin admitted in his autobiography that Ben-Gurion ordered the Israeli army to expel tens of thousands of Palestinians soon after Israel was established (maybe even more). Of course, we have to acknowledge that there were atrocities committed by Arabs against Jewish Palestinians, such as the massacres of about 70 Jews in Hebron in 1929 and about 80 Jews traveling in a caravan to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem in 1948 (in retaliation, the Irgun and the Stern Gang murdered an estimated 150-200 Palestinians in a village called Deir Yassin). We must always acknowledge that there have been innocent people killed on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, just as innocent people were killed by Irish Republican Army terrorists, Ulster Defense Association terrorists and the British Army. John Francis Fox
Fear of falling
Bellerose: On Tuesday, I fell again for the seventh time due to cancer and a knee that is bone-on-bone. This happens on my job at Northeast Plumbing in Mineola, L.I. This occurs at a number of different locations. Thanks to the kindness of strangers, friends and co-workers, they got me up and onto my feet, not to mention the EMS workers. I guess at 76, it is time for me to retire and take better care of my wife Eva, who is on an oxygen machine. I only work 14 hours a week now and have been with the company for 45 years due to caring and kind employers. Please keep me in your prayers. Frederick R. Bedell Jr.
Funhouse maps
Plainview, L.I.: Trump, who is well-known to be obsessed with the size of things, is probably driven to annex Greenland — even by military force — because he vaguely remembers how big it looked on the wall map in his 1950s third-grade classroom. As a schoolteacher, I know it looked as big as Africa, but that was because it was a Mercator projection flat map, which distorts the apparent size of land masses far from the equator. On those maps, Greenland looks bigger than South America (which is eight times larger) and as big as Africa (which is 14 times larger). Trump needs to take a look at Greenland’s actual relative size on a globe. He says we need Greenland for national security purposes, but I believe he partly wants it for his big ego. If only Trump had been in one of my third-grade classes where each student had their own globe on their desk! Richard Siegelman
Signing silly
Ledyard, Conn.: “Trump and the Magic Sharpie” may make for a good book title but it’s useless as a policy strategy. Lisa Allen
Hemming & hawing
Manhattan: Our federal government has scrubbed the word “climate” from its records, but Americans know that climate warming is already getting us into serious trouble. In New York, which should be a climate leader, Gov. Hochul is delaying critical climate policy as if we had all the time in the world. Now she wants to put off the Advanced Clean Trucks rule under pressure from truck manufacturers and dealers, who would rather have us breathe dirty fumes than act responsibly to clean them up. She’s also balking at getting the All-Electric Buildings Act off the ground by making sure all the regulations for it have been updated. To be clear, ACT and AEBA are already law. Hochul just needs to take her foot off the brakes. Matthew Schneck
Agile leadership
Mineola, L.I.: Re “The facts on Cuomo and the COVID nursing homes” (op-ed, March 12): In judging Andrew Cuomo’s stewardship of the Empire State during the pandemic, one is compelled to paraphrase Mark Twain: There are lies, damn lies and media distortions. As Paul Francis notes, “Statements that insinuate that Cuomo was responsible for unnecessary nursing home deaths in New York are demonstrably false.” While he may never attain the rhetorical heights of his eloquent paterfamilias, Cuomo is a sui generis politico whose pragmatic approach to governance elided the differences between liberal orthodoxies and conservative principles. As governor, Sheriff Andy wielded power effectively, if pugnaciously. Whatever transpires in the mayoral race, he should heed Marcus Aurelius: “Although others may at times hinder me from acting, they cannot control or impede my spirit and my will. Reserving its judgments and adapting to change, my mind bypasses or displaces any obstacle in its way. It uses whatever opposes it to achieve its own ends.” Rosario A. Iaconis
Blockheads
Ocala, Fla.: I believe if the FDNY is blocked by a car illegally parked by a hydrant, the car windows should be broken immediately so hoses can be used. Too bad for the person endangering humans by blocking hydrants. Let them pay for their windows if they impeded our valiant firefighters from saving people. Lynn Miller
