To the Editor:
I’ll keep this short. In the late 1930s, the people of Germany were convinced the Jewish population there and in neighboring countries were murdering children, sacrificing them to their pagan god, and drinking their blood — the blood libel myth, as it is called.
Many MAGA Republicans are convinced that modern-day liberals are doing that today in the U.S. If you believe that, you can justify nearly anything.
But that was and is a lie.
On Oct. 7, Israel suffered a horrific event motivated by radical anti-Semites (to put it mildly) who were intent on killing as many people as possible. That was real — there is no denying it, or the intent.
So of course, the state of Israel, with the world united behind her, had every right to retaliate. It was an egregious event, like few others. There is no denying it. When Israel retaliated, the perpetrators hid within the civilian population like the religiously motivated sociopaths they are. There is no denying it.
The Israeli response was brutal. We all expected it. What we did not expect was a systematic and calculated destruction of an entire culture. Let me speak for myself, and say I did not expect Israel to indiscriminately drop U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs on a defenseless civilian population.
I did not expect the targeted destruction of nearly every hospital in Gaza.
I did not expect the targeted destruction of schools, clearly marked, U.N. safe spaces.
I did not expect the targeted destruction of 60 percent and counting of civilian housing.
I did not expect the indiscriminate murder of more than 26,000 and rising (as of Monday) unarmed civilians.
I did not expect a siege and the deprivation of water, medicine, food, and power for a population of 2 million people.
I did not expect the deliberate and seemingly successful attempt to starve innocent children and spread disease.
I did not expect that Israel would demolish every structure within a kilometer of its border with Gaza, and permanently displace the people who live there.
I did not expect Israeli forces to bulldoze through graveyards and set up military operations among the dead.
These are all war crimes. There is no denying it. The highest court in the world ruled that Israel must take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza. There is certainly a possibility that the court is saying too little too late. There is no denying it. Calling the world press, government agencies, and international aid organizations liars does not change the facts.
There is no denying the horrors that we can see today if we choose not to be willfully ignorant. One might as well try to deny the Holocaust.
Don Keller
Vineyard Haven
