Israel column disappoints

Your June 30 Guest Opinion column, “Israeli policies costly to us,” seemed odd. When it comes to human behavior, there is plenty of blame to go around, but to present hearsay as fact is either naive or dishonest.

The authors wrote “Tamari had been … questioned for 10 hours,” and “any Jew from anywhere in the world is welcome to Israel,” and of the Miriam al-Rawi family’s “terrifying eviction” from the East Jerusalem home they owned and “their replacement by a Jewish family” with no attempt at substantiation, or even context or representativeness neither constitutes opinion nor fact. It is, at best, irresponsible.

They write that they were exposed to “a variety of opinions, debates and analyses,” but make no mention of the grim historical circumstances by which the Israelis have long justified the necessity for such things as restricted border entry, erection of huge border walls and a burdensome heavy military presence.

There was no mention of refusal of peace offers, the policy of Arab terrorism and dedication to the extinction of Israel.

And finally they pose “an important question” that is nothing but a blatant example of the classical fallacy, the loaded question, of the “when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife” ilk. For shame!

Peter Grossman

Spokane