As a Jewish individual, I am outraged and sorrowful at the abject misery inflicted upon the Palestinian people in the name of searching for Hamas [“Humiliating images of Palestinians condemned,” front page, Dec. 14].
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The power that comes with sympathy
Israeli officials have referred to Hamas suspects as “human animals” [“The world can’t ignore Gaza’s plight,” editorial, Oct. 18]. This brings to mind the warning of Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, and David Livingstone Smith, professor of philosophy at the University of New England, that “dehumanizing” language is dangerous. Not only will this not promote peace, but it also could open the door to greater hatred and perhaps even genocide.
We must nonetheless not relinquish hope. Have we a choice? If we cannot obtain human rights and justice for all, we shall never find peace. Rula Daoud, a Palestinian Israeli who directs an organization promoting peace, said, “After 76 years, Israelis and Palestinians have only one thing in common: the sense of living beside people who want to kill you.”
Is that the legacy we want to continue? Don’t our children deserve better?
Nancy J. Herin, Rockville
For the people of Gaza, there is power that comes in the accumulated sympathy created as they suffer at the hands of the Israelis. Mohandas K. Gandhi knew this. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. taught this. A reservoir of sympathy builds with each news report of innocents being killed or harmed.
Israel had a full reservoir of sympathy after the horrendous attack of Oct. 7. About 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists, and about 240 were taken hostage. And yet, Israel’s overwhelming, disproportionate response has shifted the world’s attention away from Oct. 7 and to the Palestinians.
Every time the limp body of a lifeless child is pulled from the rubble, sympathy shifts from Israel and toward the Palestinians. With every scene of massive bombing, every news article showing starving Palestinians driven from their homes living in tents, sympathy shifts. Hospitals under siege. Babies dying in incubators. Young Palestinian men, stripped to their underwear, photographed and humiliated for the world to see. Sympathy shifts.
Each day, with each new heart-wrenching report, Israel is losing and the Palestinians are winning as the world’s reservoir of sympathy grows for the victims and hearts are hardened toward those causing them such great pain.
Clayton Childers, Manassas