What Americans can do to stop the slaughter in Gaza | Opinion
Walter Thorne lives in Providence.
I respectfully disagree with Rabbi Barry Dolinger, who is the current president of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island ("Boycotting Israel will do nothing to promote peace," Commentary, July 7).
His position is that the Providence City Council’s creation of an ordinance to forgo purchase of Israel bonds will do nothing to promote peace. He posits that the Providence Council is allying with an antisemitic movement that seeks not peace, but the destruction of Israel. He believes this largely symbolic ordinance will create actual hostility for the Jewish community of Providence, already reeling from years of increasing antisemitism.
I encourage all Journal readers to study the Boycott Divestment Sanctions website, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other NGOs focused on the ongoing conflict for a broader perspective.
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It is likely true that Israeli Jewish citizens and the Palestinians can’t peacefully live together in a “true democracy,” within a single state, with today’s borders. The current situation where Palestinians are second-class citizens living under a harsh military occupation, currently under bombardment is, in part, the catalyst of much of the world’s outrage against the current extreme right-wing Zionist government.
Since the October 7 brutal massacre by Hamas of 1,200-plus Israelis and the taking of 250 hostages, the Netanyahu government has responded by killing over 38,000 Gazans, mostly women and children. With American acquiescence the Israeli Defense Force has targeted large groups of civilians in order to kill supposed Hamas fighters. We have seen the genocidal actions within Gaza by the IDF with the complicity of our country and corporations such as Palantir, whose artificial-intelligence tools have reportedly been used for targeting.
Israel cannot kill every Hamas fighter, because for every Palestinian casualty, more young people will be radicalized.
I support efforts toward a two-state solution where each country could have its own U.S./U.N. recognition and independent government and military infrastructure. The 1949 U.N. Green Line was a starting point of defining possible land allocation for two states. However the Israeli “settlers” with government support have expanded Israeli occupation onto desirable locations like East Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank high-ground located above Palestinian residents that was originally proposed for Palestinian occupancy.
Many Americans ask what we can do to stop the slaughter. One thing is to stand up, take a position and show that the present military dictatorship over the Palestinians is not working. The Providence City Council’s affirming disinvestment from Israeli bonds is a small step saying to all admirers of both Israelis and Palestinians that more killing is going to satisfy no one except the current war cabinet, which is hellbent on creating a “Greater Israel” with as few Palestinian citizens as possible.
Being in a rage about Hamas’s brutal killing on October 7 and Israel’s murderous actions in Gaza does not make one anti-Palestinian or anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli. Neither did challenging the long-lived, brutal white supremacy in the Old South make Dr. Martin Luther King a Communist.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: The Providence City Council’s affirming disinvestment from Israeli bonds is a small step saying that more killing is going to satisfy no one
