August 21, 2019 1022 PM
Dear Editor,
Around 30 years ago I saw a magazine photo of a very old Palestinian woman carrying a bucket of water from the local well along a dirt path or road to her home. In the background, beyond a chain link fence, were a bunch of Israeli kids playing in a swimming pool.
Why, I wondered, was there such a disparity between two groups of people who lived only a few yards apart? The answer was, frankly, chilling. With the United States’ support and billions of dollars of aid, much of it military, Israel had assumed near total domination over some five million Palestinians in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. I further determined that Israel had, and has, virtually ignored dozens of UN General Assembly, UN Security Council and UN Human Rights Council resolutions going back to the 1960s, many condemning their treatment of Palestinians.
Today we have a chicken or egg question: Does Israeli domination cause Palestinian violence, or does the violence justify Israeli domination? The answer really doesn’t matter. The fact is that most people on both sides want a solution. Palestinians want to be treated, like any subjugated people, with respect and some degree of self-determination, while most Israelis just want the violence to stop.
Past U.S. administrations have attempted to mediate a solution when more moderate leaders of the two factions existed. The current US administration has done nothing but exacerbate the political divisions in the region — aided in large part by far-right politics and the subservience of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Donald Trump. Their joint botching of a desired visit by two American congresswomen to Israel has, no doubt, created divisions in the assumed continuation of US support. Like Bernie Sanders stated a few days ago, if Israel will not allow entry of American elected members of Congress, for whatever reason, then just maybe it is time to reevaluate the billions of dollars we give them every year.
Until now I have paid no particular attention to the BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) movement against Israel, but the recent actions by Trump and Netanyahu have shown their racist ideology needs rebuttal. So, I am officially on the BDS bandwagon and will intentionally refuse to buy any goods from Israel until such time that their treatment of Palestinians — and American Muslim Congresswomen — has drastically changed, or until radical extremists like Trump and Netanyahu are replaced by reasonable people who initiate sensible dialogue addressing the real problems of the region.
Fred Gossien
Terlingua
Dear Editor,
I am compelled to comment on Sarah’s front page photo of your August 8 edition. While classic elements of style are depicted, let us not fail to recognize the character displayed.
This is a portrait of patriots. These are men of action. Look at their hands.
While many of us sat on our hands, struck dumb by the tragedy, these men summoned the spirits to comfort the living and give hope to a community awash in fear.
They led by example. So should we all.
Jeff Cowell
“Peepaw West of the Pecos”
Alpine
Dear Editor,
My name is Gerry Gesell and I am the cowboy taking a phone call while sitting on his horse at the Big Bend ranch rodeo.
I didn’t know anything about it until I had a bunch of phone calls and texts about it. I have lived and worked in the Trans-Pecos region since I was young, and I have always had a love affair with the area. As a kid it was my dream to be out there. I now live near San Angelo and ranch just south of there. I wanted to thank Maisie for taking the photo as well as Abbie writing a great article about the rodeo and everything that it entails. I did notice her taking photos and I apologize for not getting a chance to introduce myself.
Once again, thank y’all!
Gerry Gesell
San Angelo
Dear Editor,
When someone resorts to name-calling, exaggerations and misstatements of fact, you can be sure they don’t have a very good argument. Now, let’s be rational. Nobody wants to take away all our guns. However, within the Second Amendment we can and should ban the sale and possession of rapid-fire weapons of war and large-capacity magazines or devices that enable very rapid firing. We can and should have laws that determine where guns can be taken and used. We can and should require universal background checks and keep guns away from those with a propensity to do harm. We don’t have a right to build our own nuclear weapons or assemble a bomb in our basement. We don’t have a right to march around with a gun in arms, terrorizing our neighbors with the fear that it might go off either accidentally or on purpose.
Let’s keep within the Second Amendment and save our children, our grandchildren and ourselves from the fear and carnage that is currently gripping our lives. There’s just no rational argument NOT to do that. There is no rational argument for civilian use of a weapon that can kill 22 people and injured 24 more in a matter of seconds. There’s no rational argument for our law-enforcement personnel to face such weapons in our schools, venues, homes and streets.
And by the way, let’s be real about the Second Amendment and its purpose. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” When written, its purpose was to provide militias for the states (today we call our state militia the Texas National Guard). Militias then were made up of private citizens, and since the organizations themselves didn’t have weapons, of course those citizen soldiers had to be able “to keep and bear Arms” in order to serve when called. The “well-regulated” state militias are under the control of the Governor and can be called into the service of the United States government by the President.
The Second Amendment was notabout private citizens taking it upon themselves to make war against what they consider a “tyrannical” United States government. Doing so is treason as defined elsewhere in the Constitution. Also, it was not about groups of private citizens assembling to usurp the law-enforcement authority of either the State or Federal governments. And individuals do have a right to keep and bear arms but not a right to make, sell and possess every kind of weapon ever invented or take it anywhere they choose.
The irrational hatred that drives these acts of domestic terrorism is another matter requiring a much longer discussion. Let’s do what we can reasonably do within the laws to save lives.
Mary Bell Lockhart
Alpine
Dear Editor,
Good People
Immigration authorities admitted — and the Statue of Liberty welcomed — my family fleeing Russian and Ottoman anti-Semitic persecution around 1903. A message of hope, boundless opportunity and safety brought wave after wave of immigrants. My maternal grandmother cried because the “streets weren’t paved with gold.”
However, Trump’s immigration chief, Ken Cuccinelli, says that the Statue of Liberty’s famous poem doesn’t mean “public charges”. Many of our ancestors fled from that which Trump and his resident White Supremacist, Stephen Miller; is a hypocrite angering his immigrant family.
Cuccinelli?! Is that Scandinavian? Did any of his immigrant family experience discrimination or require public assistance? Did yours? It’s likely, given the Gilded Age inequalities before the New Deal and post-war prosperity created our vibrant middle-class.
Men of my family’s first generation born here fought evil racist nonsense in WWII, started businesses and supported families! Most second-generation cousins attended college and entered law, medicine and business. Let the spotlight be on Trump’s spurious Vietnam deferment and family’s tawdry history.
Is there nothing sacred or ripe for Trump’s “demonize and divide” strategy? They’re not even pretending anymore. Wasn’t forced separation and children in cages enough of a warning?
In the name of all that’s decent about the American experience, let’s squelch that Trump poison at its toxic inception. It’s done more than enough harm! If this isn’t the time when good people must come to the aid of their country, when else?
Sincerely yours,
Rev. Barry Abraham Zavah
Alpine
