Editor,
I compliment and I thank many the Jews of conscience in the United States and in Israel who have spoken out loud and clear — publicly damning the Israeli government’s brutal oppression and mass murder of Palestinians.
I congratulate hundreds of Israeli Jewish soldiers who have refused to be soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza because of the constant atrocities the Israeli government commits against the Palestinians.
One former Israeli soldier said that Israeli soldiers committed, “… unimaginable practices against Palestinians, competing among themselves who could kill more Palestinians, bragging afterward about how many they killed, deliberately targeting and killing children simply walking home from school and slamming the heads of handcuffed Palestinians into concrete walls.”
Israel has illegally occupied and controlled the Palestinian territories — the West Bank and Gaza — for 44 years! The United States has used Israel in the Middle East to control the whole region because of our insatiable addiction to oil.
Federal income tax dollars buy the tanks, helicopters, bulldozers and missiles the Israeli military uses to terrorize, cripple, paralyze, slaughter and make homeless the Palestinian people.
Israel receives billions of dollars from the U.S. government: it receives far more of our tax dollars than any other nation on Earth.
Every United States federal income tax payer pays for Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians. The U.S. empire has also supported for decades corrupt, bloody Arab dictatorships in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia … in order to control the region because of the United States’ evil addiction to oil.
The United States routinely sides with Israel against the Palestinians. Most members of Congress and the major presidential candidates are scared to hell of condemning Israeli atrocities largely because of the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, D.C. The Israeli military has killed hundreds of Palestinian boys and girls and has wounded thousands more. Scores of nations have often condemned Israeli persecution of Palestinians.
I oppose all violence by Israelis against Palestinians. I oppose all violence by Palestinians against Israelis. I strongly support peace and human rights for all people in Israel and in Palestine.
Revenge and more violence are not the answer for Israelis or for Palestinians. I refuse to pay one penny of United States federal income tax for Israel to rob, torture and massacre Palestinians. I have paid no federal income tax for 32 years. I have ridden in no car for 10 years — greatly reducing my use of oil.
I urge Albuquerque’s Holocaust Museum (funded by New Mexico’s tax dollars) to stop its ban of the Palestinian people among the many severely persecuted groups it commemorates.
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Don Schrader
UNM community member
