To the editor:

I am appalled by the United States’ policies regarding Israel and Palestine.

For several generations, Palestinians have been systematically pushed off their land and out of their homes, suffered under military occupation and denied basic freedoms and human rights.

Currently, a brutal Israeli military campaign is annihilating Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, is a despot that needs to continue the war to remain in power and avoid criminal prosecution on corruption charges. In the West Bank, Israeli security forces and Zionist settlers harass and abuse Palestinians with impunity.

Two recent events illustrate the ongoing atrocities. On March 24, Hamdan Ballal, a director of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” was assaulted and beaten by a group of Israeli settlers at his home in the West Bank. When the Israeli army arrived on the scene, Hamdan was detained and taken into custody. Presumably, the settlers went to their homes, or perhaps somewhere to celebrate.

On March 23 in Gaza, a convoy of four emergency vehicles was traveling to collect the bodies of two paramedics whose ambulance had come under fire from Israeli forces. Their emergency lights and sirens were on, and the ambulance operators had been in communication with Israeli forces in the area. As the vehicles approached the disabled ambulance, they came under heavy fire. A week later, 15 bodies and the crushed vehicles were found in a hastily bulldozed grave.

President Trump’s response to the situation in Gaza and the continuing atrocities: “A million and a half people, we just clean out the whole thing …. the U.S. will own it …. develop it into the Riviera of the Middle East.” Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to send billions of dollars of modern weapons to Israel, so its’ world class military can wage war on a ragtag paramilitary armed with handheld weapons and ineffective, unguided rockets. Over 50,000 Palestinians are dead so far, most of them civilian women and children. There are more children amputees in Gaza than anywhere else on earth.

I do not condone or excuse the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023. But history teaches us that when people suffer under an oppressive occupation, are dehumanized and denied basic human rights, resistance occurs by whatever means are available.

Again, I condemn the United States foreign policy regarding Israel and Palestine. So, should I worry about exercising my free speech rights? I am a native-born United States citizen, so I don’t think I could be deported, but I’m not so sure anymore. Could I be charged with treason, tried in a military tribunal? Could my Social Security benefits be stopped? Could I be “disappeared”? Just a year ago these questions would have seemed ridiculous. Today, they are serious concerns. Tomorrow, who knows? It has happened in many other countries, and there is no reason it couldn’t happen here.

John Monroe

Saranac Lake