Gaza coverage.

• Position: Letters to the Editor - Letter to the editor

I appreciated Matthew Rothschild's Editor's Note "Hurlers of the Slur" (May issue). It seems that there is a new McCarthyism in the United States regarding the Palestinian/Israeli debacle. Anyone who speaks out against the policies of Israel is immediately labeled as an anti-Semite. Jimmy Carter, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, Rashid Khalidi, and many others like me who are just ordinary citizens have witnessed the irrationality of upholding a foreign policy that supports Israel no matter what it does. I don't think there is another country in the world that would be so exempt from American criticism were it to do what Israel has done to the Palestinians.

There were 1,400 Gazans killed in the recent war as opposed to thirteen Israelis, and yet in the midst of that war our Congress voted almost unanimously that "Israel had a right to defend itself" with not one word about the Gazans. In the Lebanon war of 2006, there were more than 1,000 Lebanese killed and 100 Israelis and yet our then-Secretary of State made the fatuous statement that we were "witnessing the birth pangs of a new Middle East."

The checkpoints, settlements, the wall, the flaunting of U.N. resolutions, the changes in Jerusalem are all valid points for discussion. Individuals, politicians, journalists, and others should not be afraid of discussing them in a flank manner. And yet I fear the majority is. Thank you for your courage.

2. J. Beyer

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