Readers Write: Israel and Palestine

Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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As Israel fights to eradicate the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered, raped and kidnapped Jewish people in the pogrom of Oct. 7, there are plenty of aspects worthy of analysis on the Star Tribune opinion pages.

For example, how best can Israel comply with the Geneva Conventions setting forth the laws of war while killing Hamas fighters who hide among civilians in high-rise apartment buildings? What trade (if any) should Israel make to secure the release of the 240 hostages savagely torn from their families by Hamas?

Instead, though, the Star Tribune chose to publish a commentary by Ahmed Tharwat that smelled like the sticky floor at a convention of antisemitic internet trolls ("America is united — in overkill — when it comes to Palestine," Opinion Exchange, Oct. 1).

Tharwat asserts that since the terrorist attacks, political leaders and others have called Palestinians "animals, barbarians and Nazis." Here in reality, though, the only Palestinians receiving that criticism are barbaric Hamas terrorists and those Palestinians who literally fly swastika flags.

Tharwat claims that the "state of Israel has been stealing Palestinian lands for 75 years ... ." Here in reality, though, the United Nations and Israel have tried to give extensive land to the Palestinians at various points over the decades — only for Palestinian political leaders to rebuff every offer.

As Israel fights to eradicate Hamas, I hope Israel succeeds, Tharwat frees himself of his cage of hatred and willful ignorance, and the Star Tribune re-evaluates whether publishing a piece so full of falsehoods facilitates robust discourse or merely shows poor judgment.

Cam Winton, Minneapolis

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The murderous acts by Hamas several weeks ago inflicted on innocent Israeli citizens cannot be justified on any level. However, if you think the current iteration of Palestinian terrorists is unconscionable, just wait until Israel finishes its aerial bombardment and ground assault into Gaza. I can't imagine any surviving Palestinians or successive generations not being transformed into something worse than what Hamas is today.

Wayne Martin, Plymouth

More than 1,400 people were butchered, burned and killed by the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. More than 200 people were taken hostage, including babies. Yet this was barely a footnote in the commentary ("America is united — in overkill — when it comes to Palestine"). The attack was described as a "surprise attack" — not a terrorist attack. The hostages were described as "prisoners of war, according to a Hamas spokesman," yet most of the hostages are civilians, not soldiers — so how can they be "prisoners of war"? The author goes on to state that "if you are going to wipe out a race, you need to kill all children" — yet doesn't mention the 40 children killed by Hamas in one kibbutz alone, according to Israeli officials. Israel was attacked by Hamas terrorists and people were taken hostage and are still being held hostage. These facts cannot be forgotten nor minimized.

Sheldon Berkowitz, St. Paul

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Israel: I am appalled! What are you thinking? I've been your staunch supporter for years, but the news from Gaza is beyond the pale. Killing and injuring innocent Palestinians? Making life uninhabitable for 2 million-plus people? Including likely Israeli hostages? I get it — you suffered a brutal terrorist attack yourself. Horrifying and indefensible. Is retaliation justified? Of course. But that's clearly not the right question. The right question is: What will serve the long-term interests of Israel and preserve innocent lives in Gaza? I'm shocked that you haven't thought this through. Instead, your rage has led you to absolute madness.

Jill Schwimmer, Minneapolis

And there it is, Tharwat's latest myopic commentary piece, this one full of analogies that criticize Israel without any balancing perspective. "Hamas militants' surprise attack on Israel" ignores the slaughter of civilians in their homes and at a music festival. He plays the Nazi card in equating the citizen-military of Israel with Germans complicit in the Holocaust. He says these ordinary Israelis are "committing monstrous acts in Gaza" during a declared war to defeat their enemy, while they constantly warn Gaza's civilians to leave their positions as human shields for the terrorists. He calls Israel an apartheid state, ignoring that all of the surrounding Muslim countries are apartheid states, having expelled all of their Jewish citizens in the 1940s to 1970s without their property. He calls Israel's response an "overkill reaction" to Hamas' starting a war, as if "proportionality" is used by any country trying to win a war against its mortal enemy. He uses the term "genocide" to describe civilian casualties, but if Israel wanted to kill all the Palestinians in Gaza, it wouldn't tell them to leave Gaza City during the war on Hamas. And Tharwat's most fantastically asinine analogy is equating the Israeli's actions with the extermination of Indigenous people around the world. He ignores the fact that the Partition Plan split Palestine into Arab and Jewish parts, and when Israel declared its existence on May 14, 1948, local Arabs, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia attacked the new Israel and tried to exterminate the Jews! So when you read his commentaries, keep in mind that Tharwat looks through his telescope backward.

Eric Bressler, Minnetonka

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Reading the news of global events, coupled with opinions and analyses from our leadership cadre, leads one to see that the world is on fire. The passions conveyed in the media from all sides — liberals, conservatives, Jews, Palestinians, Americans, United Nations representatives, etc., etc., etc. — stoke the flames. And the slaughters proceed.

Tribalism — it's embedded in all of us. When it coalesces as mob psychology, disasters such as we are seeing in Yemen, Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan happen. Whether this is based on ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, the incitements are similar. They are to blame for our problems. They are inferior, and therefore we are justified in whatever we do. And those who are not directly affected by these cataclysms, who witness them through the media, raise our voices in support of our connections to these faraway oppressors or victims. The tremors are felt throughout our communities (see Prof. Erwin Chemerinsky's Nov. 1 commentary "Nothing prepared me for this moment's antisemitism").