Not everyone in Riverdale wants to rally for Israel

To the editor:

Your headline on page 1 of the July 31 issue proclaimed, “Riverdale rallies for Israel,” while indicating in the first paragraph that the pro-Israel rally in Seton Park on Sunday, July 27 was attended by “roughly 200” people.

I am not rallying for Israel, and object to your headline suggesting that the community stands as one in defense of Israel’s ongoing attacks against Gaza.  Like many people in Riverdale and around the world, I have watched in horror as the Israeli government has put occupied Gaza under siege once again, killing more than 1,200 Palestinians as of this date, some 74 percent of whom the U.N. has estimated to be civilians. Many children are among the victims, with parks, beaches, hospitals, shelters and schools targeted for bombing by Israeli forces. Fifty-six Israelis, most of them in the military, have died in the same period.

I am neither Israeli nor Palestinian. I don’t need to be either to know that Palestinian and Israeli lives are of equal value. But this is apparently not the point of view of the Israeli government, whose seven-year occupation of Gaza and the 1.8 million Palestinians trapped in inhuman conditions there is a crime against humanity. Representative Engel does not represent my views when he demands U.S. allegiance to Israel’s “war against Gaza,” and deplores those who point out the appalling difference in the numbers of casualties on the two sides. It is hard not to infer that Mr. Engel may feel that Palestinian lives are less important than Israeli ones.

Senator Schumer is right that merely saying both sides are in the wrong is misleading. The ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people, in Gaza and the West Bank, are a travesty and a deep shame. As a Riverdale resident, but more importantly as a human being, I deplore those crimes.

JENNIFER SCARLOTT