Don’t support

Israeli expansion

To the editor:

The only positive thing about the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers is that it might focus more needed attention on the overall situation.

The Israelis invaded the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967, and since then they have deported and jailed thousands of Palestinians, confiscated their property, and saddled several million Palestinians under economically crippling restrictions on commerce and transportation.

Back in 1972 I visited the University of Jordan in Amman, where faculty were taking up a collection to hire an Israeli lawyer to try to locate one of their students. He was abducted by the Israeli occupation authorities when he was visiting relatives in the West Bank.

They had collected 56 dinars, I recall, and the lawyer wanted 150. Someone was going to take the money to him and ask him to do what he could. Since the Israelis routinely jail people without charges, there is usually nothing a defense lawyer can do because there is no legal case to work with. It amounts to kidnapping.

The US has been quick to condemn Russia for annexing Crimea, and chase Saddam out of Kuwait, but there has been dwindling progress to reverse Israeli expansionism. The underlying reason for this one-sidedness is the influence of the Israel lobby in Washington.

Responsible Jewish Americans have come to the realization of this, and have organized through Jewish Voices for Peace, boycotts against Israeli goods, and in other ways. These valuable efforts deserve more support and news coverage.

David Mendenhall

Pomona, New York