To the editor: To those that cheered Hamas’s killing of non-combatants, contemplate this. (“What the U.S. is telling Israel a couple of Gaza floor invasion — and what Israel is listening to,” Oct. 31.)
What did The Black Panthers actually obtain with their pick-up-the-gun rhetoric, versus Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent, noncooperative mass motion that introduced elementary change to America?
King’s motion at all times held ethical, political and public opinion excessive. He at all times averted violence, irrespective of what number of centuries of violence had been inflicted on African People.
How a lot did the Indian terrorists actually win in opposition to the British in India (who unleashed three centuries of violence and colonial rule over India), in comparison with what Mahatma Gandhi’s huge, coordinated, non-violent, non-cooperation motion achieved?
In his sensible ebook “The Hundred Years’ Struggle on Palestine,” Columbia College historian Rashid Khlaidi factors out that Israeli generals admitted that the largely nonviolent, noncooperative, well-coordinated demonstrations of the primary Palestinian intifada within the Nineteen Nineties had been environment friendly. This was as a result of Israeli forces knew tips on how to simply crush violent teams, leaving them unaware when confronted with the intifada.
This was the one time that the Palestinians supported the Israeli militarists and really made nice progress diplomatically. They received the assist and sympathy of world public opinion.
The Hamas method isn’t – I repeat, doesn’t – the best way to make features, and occasions since October 7 have confirmed it. Dr. King’s and Gandhi’s examples of the suitable technique to convey constructive social change underscore this dramatically.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Sitting comfortably in California, my thoughts is consumed with empathy for my fellow human beings experiencing twin horrors in distant Mediterranean lands.
In Israel, households mourn or anxiously await information of hostages taken by Hamas. Within the Gaza Strip, Palestinian households cower from explosions and shrapnel and queue for water as they mourn their lifeless.
As I hearken to the retreating name of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a “holy struggle” in opposition to the biblical enemy “Amalek”, I mourn the lifetime of the sensible and visionary Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a statesman who acknowledged that Israel won’t ever be safe till the land of Palestine constitutes two safe nations separated by authorized borders.
That Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by somebody who supported Netanyahu for prime minister the next yr provides poignant, pressing and unhappy irony to this newest murderous spherical of Center East strife.
Eileen White Learn, Santa Barbara
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To the editor: A photograph you posted of the October 28 march in downtown Los Angeles has an indication that claims, “Unity in Confronting Zionism.” Zionism is the creation of the state of Israel.
Demonstrators chanted: “From the river to the ocean, Palestine will probably be free.” For Palestine to stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, Israel must disappear.
These protesters will not be condemning the lack of harmless lives or issuing a name for justice. They subscribe to Hamas’ purpose: the destruction of Israel.
Because of this, no matter my assist for the peace motion, I can discover no widespread trigger for these protests.
Paula Goldman, Santa Monica