SOUTHOLD

These protests are not antisemitism

As a Jewish American who has been to Israel twice, I fully support the professors and students of SUNY/Stony Brook and other campuses who have demonstrated against the complicity of the United States, and the actions of the IDF in its bombing campaigns against civilian targets in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of more than 25,000 Palestinian women and children, according to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. A dissenting Jewish professor, among others, was arrested, put in jail, his phone confiscated and treated rudely by campus security.

It is in no way antisemitic to protest against the abominable actions of Netanyahu and the IDF. And no excuses for Hamas’ terrorism either, but the fact is 80% of the population of Gaza — 1.7 million people — consists of refugees and their descendants who fled or were displaced following Israel’s War of Independence and subsequent wars.

Finally, I am disappointed that I have not seen so much as a whimper of protest from clergy or, for that matter almost anyone, about what has happened in The Suffolk Times. I’m sorry, I have to write how I feel. 

Harry Katz