To the editor:
We are witnessing a crime against all our humanity in Gaza.
How can we get up in the morning knowing that children are buried in rubble, parents are dead, lovers are dead, pets are dead, friends are dead and more of this will happen and we are doing nothing to stop it?
How can we take pleasure in the gorgeous light in the sky in New England in autumn when people are starving and suffering agony and driven from their homes and place like a herd of animals?
We are being forced to abide with evil.
This does nothing but raise the Palestinians into the sacred realm of every human ever victimized by organized cruelty and sadism. It degrades everyone else.
And this has been the story of Palestinians, if you pull back the cover of propaganda from the brutal status quo that has existed since 1948, the year of the Nakba, the crisis that expelled 700,000 people from their homeland, fating them to live for generations in refugee camps.
Don’t speak of Hamas or terrorism or politics or whatever the media is pumping out in breaks between the disruptive pop-up ads or paid actors on TV.
Now is the time to discuss the tenets of international law, which puts equal value on the life of every human being.
Now is the time to demand a ceasefire, the rebuilding of Gaza for Gazans, the right of return for Palestinians living for generations as refugees, the establishment of a peace and reconciliation process to foster a country of one people living according to international law.
We in this country find such a process far-fetched because we have never redressed the historical grievances festering at the center of our society.
Perhaps if the U.S. had undergone a truth and reconciliation process over slavery or the removal and genocide of Indians, we would be in a better position to advise.
But since we lack such experience the least we can do is call upon our country to demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to the obscene amounts of U.S. taxpayer money being spent to worsen the bloodshed.
Corinna Barnard
South Egremont
