A recent One View [No one wins the blame game, Viewpoints, Dec. 13] on the Israel-Hamas conflict, failed to provide any realistic recommendations for Israel to deal with a neighbor who calls for the destruction of Israel and Jews worldwide. Hamas leadership has said, in effect, that they do not care about the welfare of the people of Gaza. The care of the people is the responsibility, in their view, of the rest of the world. The writer fails to recognize that the latest war is the fifth time in 15 years that Hamas has provoked armed conflict.
Like other writers in Wednesday Journal, she calls on Israel to follow the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King on nonviolence. But why did they not quote what King said about Israel in 1968:
“I think it is necessary to say that what is basic and what is needed in the Middle East is peace. Peace for Israel is one thing. Peace for the Arab side of that world is another thing. Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel, and never mind saying it, as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can almost be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be reality.” (Source: A Conversation with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., The Rabbinical Assembly, March 25, 1968)
Ken Trainor, in a recent column, said the conflict is 75 years old. This puts its start in 1948 with the War for Israeli Independence. But the conflict goes back to the Sixth Century.
Our local community is not immune to anti-Jewish acts or speech. In River Forest a resident put a blue ribbon around a parkway tree in support of Israel. Someone complained about her ribbon, but not about dozens of other ribbons on other trees for other causes. Also, a pastor of a church in Oak Park, in a separate One View, blamed military aid to Israel for the problems of people of the Austin neighborhood. Unnamed were Egypt, which maintains a blockade against Gaza along with Israel, and other Arab nations that receive similar aid.
I call on my neighbors to not be silent about possible anti-Jewish speech and action. Speak up, as you would do if it was directed against other ethnic, religious, national and racial groups.
Alan Peres is a resident of Oak Park.