It is unfortunate that many American Jews believe that the only context that matters is the Jewish one. Stuart Richard’s op-ed narrative (“Important context that lengthy column omitted,” Jan. 17) is deeply embedded in the Jewish psyche after two millennia of persecution culminating in the Shoah (Holocaust). It is really Mohsen Mahdawi’s Palestinian story that has been the missing context all along.
I have a different perspective, which puts me at odds with my family here and my friends in Israel. First, it is very important to state that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. The last four years have reminded Jews that there will always be anti-Semitism. Being anti-Zionist is to be opposed to an ideology of a strong Jewish nation — which has become an occupier.
The Zionist’s plan was to create a Jewish nation in a place Jews had been since biblical times, but populated mostly by ancestors of people like Mahdawi. Various Jewish groups sought to drive the British and Palestinians out. The following 70 years have seen many leaders of these groups become politicians carrying this ideology to the current right-wing coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Palestinian history after 1948 is more like that of the Native Americans. In 1948, the Palestinians experienced Al Nakba (“The Catastrophe”). They escaped to neighboring countries and were squeezed into ghettos. The longer they remain refugees the harder it will be to keep their culture alive. Their occupied lands have become permanent settlements. When we think of their day-to-day lives, we should recall the treatment of Black people under Jim Crow.
I can understand how people would want to fight an occupation. But I also believe that most people just wish to be able to live a life of dignity. In this moment, when there is a national reckoning over white privilege, it is worth understanding how things came to be. There is another side to this story.
SHARON RACUSIN
Norwich
It appears to me that the rate of COVID-19 vaccinations is nowhere near what mass immunization should look like. And my personal hope of getting vaccinated is quite telling. Even though I’m in my 80s and have some underlying health conditions, I never expected to be among the first to be immunized; that needs to be those on the front lines. But I was hoping to get immunized in a timely fashion. And because I don’t live in a retirement community, I’m not part of that high-priority group, either.
The information I had back in December was that “you will get the vaccine where you get your health care.” I’ve been getting my health care at DHMC for nearly 20 years, but now the DHMC website says that I can’t get vaccinated there because I’m not a New Hampshire resident; I live across the river in Vermont. In Vermont, I find that I can now register on Monday, presumably for vaccination perhaps a week later, if I’m lucky.
At this rate, it looks like our population will be a long time reaching “herd immunity” and the associated economic recovery. There must be a better way.
ABNER SCHLABACH
East Barnard
Optimism is high regarding the Biden administration’s plans, not only to stimulate the COVID-19-ravaged economy but assure that it works more equitably for all. But the addition of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court may lead to corporate challenges that will hinder such progress. Much of the concern about Barrett has been about whether she’ll become the additional vote that would enable the court to roll back progress on many social issues like gun control, same-sex marriage and abortion rights. But how her presence might shift the court farther toward favoring corporate influence is also cause for alarm.
Corporate activists, like the Koch family, have worked for decades to reduce corporate regulations and taxes. In 1974, Charles Koch said he wanted to end “confiscatory taxation,” safety and health regulations, so-called “equal opportunity requirements” and “many more interventions.”
Since then, the Supreme Court and lower courts have given corporations some of what Koch wanted: made it harder for consumers and workers to fight corporate fraud, more difficult for labor unions to organize, and easier for the rich to give millions — often secretly — to political campaigns. That’s helped incomes soar for the wealthy but change little for low- and middle-income people.
Barrett’s comment that climate change was “controversial,” hints that she may please corporate activists with a willingness to thwart legislation to limit carbon emissions. Her amazing refusal to say that Medicare was legal may signal a readiness to help corporations be avoid responsibility of paying some of the tax that funds this beloved program.
Such rulings would undermine programs for an equitable society and a healthy, sustainable future. Sadly, just when a new administration wants make progress in all these areas, they’ve become more likely.
STEVE GEHLERT
West Newbury