To the Editor:

The apparently obscure “Ginny-skunk” remark referred to the legal stink of Clarence Thomas in not recusing himself from the Trump Immunity case even though his wife, “Ginny,” was prominently involved in election denial and the insurrection on January 6. Still, you raised some lengthy but important points.

I agree that the Republican House disgraced our country and itself in delaying aid, perhaps fatally, to Ukraine. That was not President Biden’s doing. Only Congress can authorize funding. You are consistently and deliberately myopic on this issue.

It is not within the authority of state-supported schools to treat religion as anything but an academic or cultural consideration. If a student must have religion incorporated into the curriculum, (s)he can choose to go to a religious school. Constitutionally, the government cannot be in the business of promoting religious beliefs per se.

Students have the right to non-violently confront the issues of their day. Leaving aside the non-student racist agitators, at Columbia University the protest is against the school’s holding stock in companies that are profiting from the Israeli war to abolish Gaza. To censure the government of Israel’s 75-year national policy of apartheid is not anti-Semitic, and is not necessarily “”pro-Palestinian,” but to blame all Jews everywhere for Israel’s genocidal acts in Gaza is anti-Semitic. The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, was evil and what Israel is doing to the civilian population of Gaza is likewise despicable. Their mutual, decades-long intransigence is placing the world, including the futures of those students, at risk.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was fighting “human animals” in Gaza and “cut off electricity, supplies of water, medicine, [and] food,” in breach of Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949). Intentional starvation of civilians is a war crime. President Biden has called for ceasefire and humanitarian assistance for Gaza but is understandably unwilling to abandon Israel to Iran.

Both Israelis and Palestinians have invoked “From the river [Jordan] to the sea” for their purposes. Since “al-Nakba” in 1948, approximately 700,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homeland to accommodate Diaspora Jews after the Holocaust, resulting over time in an Israeli apartheid. When Palestinians demanded at least freedom and equality, as Black South Africans demanded from their White counterparts, it was always rejected. In fact, Netanyahu’s Likud Party platform (1977) says, “The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable… between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” That is not a “defensive” posture.

Netanyahu, most Israelis, and some Jews believe that they are sanctioned to commit any act of war and cruelty necessary to secure Palestine as Israel. Hamas is a result of that arrogance. I don’t know from Joshua, but incredibly imperious Netanyahu demands that we in the West support Israel, no matter what they choose to do in Gaza or anywhere else. But the Holocaust, as horrendous as it was, did not dispense to Israel the moral or historical right to deny Palestinians their freedom in that country and to perpetrate atrocities on their Arab neighbors. And not everyone believes it is our responsibility to enable it.

Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.