Federation president Fruchter part of the problem

Editor, The Times:

I was disappointed to see [president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle] Richard Fruchter’s rejection of the exposure of the well-known and ongoing crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Israeli government against not only the Palestinian people but against its own citizens, such as Vanunu and including the murder of U.S. citizen Rachel Corrie [“Metro bus ad buy triggers backlash, debate,” page one, Dec. 21].

While I have been supportive of Jewish people, as I am of all human beings, I am beginning to realize, based on Fruchter’s comments, that he and his organization are part of the problem — not the solution. That is incredibly disappointing.

If Fruchter wants to avoid bigotry, start protesting the ongoing and severe oppression of innocent Palestinians. If Fruchter wants Muslims to protest against terrorists, man up and protest against the terrorist state of Israel. Show some integrity instead of rank corrupt partisanship.

There are plenty of Jewish people everywhere who have the courage to expose the criminal regime of the Israeli government as there are Americans who work to expose the criminal regime and elements in the American government.

Right now Fruchter’s silly but destructive actions are inflaming my “bigotry.”

— Greg Logan, Shoreline

Controversial ads don’t belong in public sphere

The decision by Metro to accept ads from the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign is a violation of the public trust. Metro is not a private, free-market enterprise. It is funded by public money. According to its own policy barring advertising that is “so insulting, degrading or offensive as to be reasonably foreseeable that it will incite or produce imminent lawless action,” it clearly has the option to reject such ads.

Agreeing to run these ads crosses the line and opens the door to future advertising that could be considered controversial and provocative. What should we expect to see on our Metro buses in the future, ads by neo-Nazi organizations and other racist groups?

I take issue with the advice given to [County Executive] Dow Constantine by county attorneys suggesting that this in some way violates free speech. I respect the right of the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign to promote its agenda in any private, free-market publication but in no way can this be justified in an arena that is financially supported by public funds. What about protecting “the rights” of the citizens of the county and the state?

In my opinion, this is a misguided, poorly-thought-out decision and it needs to be reversed.

— David Peha, Renton

Israeli war crimes deserve American public’s attention

We support the ads that will appear on a few city buses exposing how our tax dollars are enabling Israel to commit war crimes.

The adherents of the Israeli military occupation and its expansive policies in the West Bank and Gaza have been controlling the narrative in the U.S. media, in Congress and diplomatic circles far too long. The ads are a tiny effort to rouse our consciousness in defense of human rights and against war crimes being committed by Israel with our tax dollars!

If the adherents of Israeli policies can carry full page ads in The New York Times and in The Nation, then the tiny effort on behalf of those fighting for human rights is not to be denied.

As though the Israel lobby doesn’t have enough influence on our government! As though Israel doesn’t receive more financial aid than any other nation, that it has the fourth-largest military arsenal in the world, that it possesses nuclear weapons (never acknowledged), that it receives extreme military, diplomatic, moral and media support, all courtesy of the U.S. government!

The U.S. media have done a poor job of reporting on the war crimes of Israel and the complicity of the U.S. government in those crimes by its extreme support of the militaristic state of Israel. The interests of the U.S. are not being served by our subservience to Israel.

Americans are losing their jobs and their homes, yet we give Israel nearly $3 billion annually, which enables Israel to continue its militaristic control of the Palestinian people and the subsidizing of illegal settlements! We need to keep those tax dollars here at home.

Americans need to be educated in the history of the enactment of deliberate policies by Israel for the takeover of Palestine. Those policies antedate the Holocaust. “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian, is a good start. Why do the illegal settlers have more rights than the indigenous people who have been there for hundreds, if not thousands, of years? Remember the Palestinian people were not responsible for the Holocaust, but they are being made to atone for the guilt of the U.S. and Europe.

The United States being a so-called “great” power carries with it a great responsibility in human rights. Where is our humanity?

— Barbara and J. Glenn Evans, Seattle

Jews must step up, protest, or suffer a fate similar to that in Germany

It’s tempting to say, “So sorry” to Metro spokeswoman Linda Thielke for “interfering with Metro’s ability to answer phone calls about bus schedules” by protesting the hate-filled ads that Metro is putting on its buses. And I suppose I could apologize to the county executive for costing “hundreds of hours of staff time to address the intended controversy — time that is better spent providing bus service.”

After all, revenue is hard to come by, so why should I care if the people who share my religion and share my heritage are targeted by hate messages on the side of dozens of buses?

One good reason. History has shown that if I just shrink back and don’t rock the boat, when the billboards do their job and incite hatred that goes beyond the controversy in Gaza, then people will say, “He didn’t protest, so we must be right.”

As the historian William Sheridan Allen wrote in 1984, “The problem of the Jew-as-pariah in Northeim [a town in Germany], was not simply one of the Nazis trying to impose a system of persecution on an inert mass. The Jews themselves exacerbated the situation by withdrawing into themselves while the other Northeimers, even if they might be opposed to the persecution of the Jews, abetted the system by their own efforts at self-promotion.”

Maybe the Seattle Mideast Awareness Program doesn’t care to be compared with the National Socialist German Workers Party, but hate and failure to respond to it is the same now as it was in 1933.

After all, our judicial authorities already declared open season on Jews when they failed to prosecute the murder and shootings at the Seattle Jewish Federation as an act of terrorism, which it was. And yes, it is related to the billboards, because the defendant said he was angry at Jews about the situation in Israel.

So I join the chorus in protesting the use of publicly owned transit facilities to spread a message guaranteed to incite hatred.

— Franklin Watts, Mercer Island

Fighting for an oppressed people consistent with Jewish heritage, not anti-semitism

As a writer, educator and an individual of Jewish heritage for more than 75 years, I take exception to the actions of a handful of members of the Jewish community who have taken on themselves the right to censor that with which they disagree. Worse yet, they pretend to speak for the Jewish community. They do not speak for me.

Social justice, peace and compassion are all threads that run through the teachings of Judaism. Protesting military occupation; calling for the halt of taxpayers’ dollars to subsidize the continuing enslavement of a people; and insisting that real steps be taken toward peace in the Middle East are all actions consistent with the Jewish heritage that I know and live by.

Holding Israel and the United States to account does not make me or those like me anti-Semites.

— Lawrence Paros, Kirkland

Why not return Seattle to Native Americans?

Before criticizing Israel, how about returning Seattle and the land it occupies back to the Native American Indians? That crime is 200 years old!

America keeps the native populations locked on 400 reserves. Talk about apartheid in America!

At least the Israelis are defending its sovereign nation founded thousands of years ago, stolen by Arab populations in wars of genocide against the Jews.

Your tax dollars went to buy the thousands of rockets used by Gaza to murder Jewish children rather than the humanitarian aid it was supposed to purchase.

Try reading history books and not books by revisionist hysterics.

— William Levy, Rehovot, Israel