I received an email from a Jewish friend today. She explained that a number of Maryland rabbis (80+ at last count) had recently sent a letter to our very own Senator Chris Van Hollen angrily criticizing his support for a cease fire and for supporting conditions on aid to Israel. These conditions apply to foreign aid to other countries also and are about abiding by basic humanitarian guidelines.
The letter they sent was infuriating — full of misinformation and exaggeration. For example, the letter claims that more than a thousand employees of UNWRA, the UN Agency that provides aid to Palestinian refuges, are terrorists:
We need your leadership when it comes to telling the truth about UNRWA, the U.N. agency exposed to have employed over 1,400 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
They give no source for that claim. I searched for news and information on the subject and could find nothing that supports the 1,400 number they used. Even the dozen UNWRA employees that Israel itself has claimed to be involved in the Hamas attack on Israel has not been verified.
The rabbis’ letter limits its concern for the people of Gaza to one paragraph which, curiously, does not include numbers of Gazan deaths although all their descriptions of Israeli suffering has detailed numbers. The rabbis then absolve Israel of any responsibility.
Like you, we are also deeply pained by the suffering and death of innocent civilians in Gaza. We, too, care deeply for those who have lost their lives and their homes in Gaza as a result of Hamas’ actions and this terrible war, and we yearn to see the day that Palestinian lives will be prioritized by their leadership.
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True, conditions on the ground (and Hamas interference) have made it extremely difficult to deliver sufficient aid to civilian populations. Why do you insist on laying the blame at Israel’s feet?
About 30,000 have died in Gaza including more than 13,000 children, and the rest of the population is on the brink of starvation but that’s not Israel’s problem, oh no not at all. I cannot understand how people who who claim to have Jewish values can justify their indifference to this level of suffering.
They also leave out any mention of the fact that Hamas has survived in large part because of the support it has gotten from Netanyahu for many years. If Hamas is as evil as the rabbis claim (which it is), why aren’t they criticizing the Israeli government for supporting Hamas for so many years?
And the letter, while expressing justified concern about the hostages still held by Hamas, ignores the fact that the hostages who have been saved were saved through diplomacy, not through war. While the IDF did indeed rescue two hostages, it also killed three Israeli hostages. Those hostages still alive and in captivity are likely suffering starvation and thirst just as the rest of the population of Gaza is.
I ask for any members of Daily Kos who are 1) Jewish and 2) Marylanders please sign on to a letter than has been written to support Senator Van Hollen. Our senator needs to know that despite a letter signed by 80 rabbis, the Jewish community in Maryland is not a monolith and those rabbis don’t represent us (that’s why we’re asking for signatures from Jewish Marylanders).
Please read and add your name to this letter here. And send it around to anyone you know might be interested in supporting Senator Van Hollen. And any non-Jewish Marylanders — please email and/or call Senator Van Hollen’s office (202) 224-4654 to show support for his courageous stances — and ask your friends to do the same.