Letter to the editor: Writer’s views miss the mark

I have read Joanna Colwell’s editorials over the last few months and believe that her anti-Zionist beliefs cloud her view of what’s happening in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Her views on Israel being an “apartheid” state and genocidal towards the Palestinians is purely subjective.

I write in response to the letters condemning Israel.

We urge voters in Vergennes and several other Vermont towns to reject well-meant but futile resolutions attacking Israel.

I would like to offer another (Jewish) perspective on the Apartheid Free Communities measure on the Vergennes town meeting ballot.

While Vergennes residents on Town Meeting Day will consider a non-binding resolution relating to Israel and its treatment of some Palestinian people, Ferrisburgh voters will not have a voice on a similar resolution after the town’s selectboard declined to … (read more)

I write to oppose the anti-Israel non-binding referendum on the Vergennes Town Meeting Day ballot. Israel is a vibrant democracy. Palestinian Israelis vote alongside Jewish Israelis in all elections. Arab countries of the Middle East and Africa are weak d … (read more)

Vergennes residents on Town Meeting Day will have a chance to tell city councilors to take a stand in the war between Israel and the Palestinian people.

There’s been some divisive disinformation about Zionism on news and social media these days. I’d like to offer some historical perspectives with the hope they provide more light than heat.

It has been one year since the worst mass murder of Jewish people since the Shoah.

In his letter to the editor in the September 5 Addison Independent, Hal Cohen asserts that those who support the Palestinians’ right to exist are actually Hamas supporters and are therefore traitors.

We share Hal Cohen’s outrage at Hamas’s unspeakable recent murder of six Israeli hostages. No decent person could defend Hamas, which is, indeed, evil personified; but it is absolutely wrong to equate Hamas with all Palestinians or Gazans.

With the murder of American hostages by Palestinian Hamas those pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protesters have become traitors.

It’s a rainy Monday afternoon in Ripton, and outside I hear crickets chirping. Tonight is the beginning of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and my heart is with the protesters calling for Kamala Harris to end all arms sales to Israel.

On Wednesday, the day before this issue of the Addison Independent came out, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to address the joint houses of Congress. 

If you ask me how I am doing these days, I don’t know how to answer. My heart is breaking for Palestine. And my heart is breaking for American Jews, many of whom have dear friends and family in Israel, who are longing for safety and security.