Letters to the editor
Readers respond
Jett fails to distinguish between the Israel’s government and its people
In the first line of his letter to the editor, Ambassador Dennis Jett (Ret.) says he will explain why he is voting for Summer Lee, but then the bulk of his letter criticizes the Israeli government (“It’s ‘shortsighted’ to support a candidate based on one factor,” April 19).
I agree with him. The Netanyahu government is an extremist government. But one must differentiate between the Israeli government and the Israeli people.
The Oct. 7 massacre and the Iranian missile attack weren’t attacks on the Israeli government; they were attacks on the Israeli people. Could Israel’s response to Oct. 7 have been different, causing less suffering to the residents of Gaza? Maybe, but how do you fight terrorists deeply embedded in a civilian population?
As far as the accusation of genocide, thousands of the dead were Hamas terrorists.
The number of dead civilians is horrible, but I did not see the same level of world outrage when Assad and Putin killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Syria.
The reason I’m not voting for Summer Lee isn’t connected to her lack of support for the government of Israel. I’m not voting for her due to her lack of support for the people of Israel (and for the lack of understanding of the anguish of her constituents).
Mitchell Nyer
Pittsburgh
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