Free speech not infringed

Editor, The Times:

Ed Mast thinks his free speech rights were infringed [“.‘Israel right or wrong’ crowd advocates censorship in Seattle,” guest commentary, Opinion, Jan. 1]. The fundamental flaw in this argument is that he ignores the context for Israeli actions, which puts his proposed ad campaign into the category of falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theater.

Illustrative of the fundamental bias in his arguments is that he cites Israeli rockets being fired at Gaza, without mentioning that the only reason Israel has taken any military action in Gaza, since its total and unilateral withdrawal from that territory in 2005, is due to the thousands of rockets Hamas and other violent Palestinian groups fired into Israel from the day Israel withdrew.

Unlike Israel’s defensive operations, the Palestinian rocket war against Israel is a military action directed intentionally at civilians. Until Mast acknowledges the context, his arguments lack intellectual honesty and moral authority.

This is not a free-speech issue, but a civil-society and community-responsibility issue. The stakes are high. We need dialogue based on facts, not hyperbole.

Contrary to Mast’s words, I am not an apartheid supporter, a racist, nor part of an “Israel right or wrong” cabal. I am an American Jew and a family man. I’ve gone to hospital to comfort people injured in suicide bus bombs in Tel Aviv. The thought of seeing billboards on our Metro buses accusing Israel of war crimes made me feel like a bull’s-eye was being placed on my, and my family’s, heads.

Thanks to King County for doing the right thing and keeping Mast’s ads off our buses.

— Dave Landsman, Mercer Island

Spineless leaders

Thanks for printing Ed Mast’s op-ed, knowing that it will subject The Times to a deluge of hate mail from Israel’s amen-brigade around the world.

Fortunately, they are a minority in King County. Sadly, our spineless leaders act as if they represent the good people of King County. [King County Executive] Dow Constantine and his fellow panderers should be ashamed of themselves.

— Aram Falsafi, Seattle

County, Metro commended

Ed Mast is wrong saying that his group’s bus ad was canceled because of censorship — he believes the “Israel right or wrong” crowd advocated for.

I commend King Country and Metro for realizing that running his group’s ads didn’t comply with its advertising policy. Free speech does not mean that government must allow itself to be used as a vehicle for propaganda, nor are advertisements on buses a means for open debate.

Mast doesn’t specify what war crimes he believes Israel committed. He says nothing about Hamas putting it’s citizens in harms way by using Palestinians as human shields, hiding weapons in homes, schools and hospitals and shooting rockets from these locations.

He doesn’t mention that it was only after Hamas fired 8,165 rockets and mortars into Israel’s neighborhoods, schools and farms between January 2001 and December 2008 that Israel took action. How many rockets would Americans tolerate coming across it’s borders?

— Luci Varon, Seattle

Committed to free speech

The Seattle Times deserves to be commended for its commitment to free speech as demonstrated by the publication of Edward Mast’s op-ed column.

Mast’s column was an informative lament over the fact that some groups, which defend Israel from all criticism, convinced King County Executive Dow Constantine to ban from Metro buses ads paid for by the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign.

These ads sought to bring to the attention of the public the fact that U.S. tax dollars supported Israel’s war on the people of Gaza — a war that, by the accounts of numerous human-rights organizations, was heavily prosecuted against innocent civilians.

What makes democracies such as those of the United States and Israel strong and vibrant is tolerance for free speech and a willingness to learn about unpleasant and even shameful truths. Suppression of that process is a very dangerous thing.

— Elaine Loughlin, Port Townsend

Counter to traditional values

As a Jewish American and longtime supporter of all Israeli policy, I applaud the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign’s attempt to inform the public about Israel’s human-rights abuses. Like other Jews who supported the campaign, I recognize that Israel’s treatment of non-Jews runs counter to traditional Jewish values.

The groups that blocked the ads did so to keep the public as blind to these abuses as they are. Their idealistic beliefs about Israel inhibit them from objectively studying the history of Israel-Palestine. If they would do so, they would see that their collective denial of reality is the true root of the suffering on both sides.

They would also see that most criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic. If there is anything anti-Semitic in the debate between critics and defenders of Israeli behavior it is the turning away from Jewish values by Jews who support the theft of Palestinian land and other crimes that prevent a fair peace. In short, the issue is not about pro- or anti-Israel. It is about pro- or anti-human rights.

— Richard Forer, Albuquerque, N.M.