Moral equivalency
One reels from a combination of astonishment and disgust at Douglas Bloomfield’s op-ed on the Itamar slaughter (“A brutal act brings out the worst on all sides,” March 17).
Bloomfield has achieved the morally unthinkable, namely, a chain of “reasoning” starting with the slaughter of a three-month-old by a Palestinian terrorist by cutting her throat and ending with a call for Bibi Netanyahu to shut up. (One is reminded of the horrific scene in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan when a German soldier slowly pushes his knife into the throat of an American soldier while saying “Shh, shh,” as he dies.)
Bloomfield says that Jewish groups are “exploiting” the tragedy by asking for contributions. Based on what?
Where is the moral equivalence between settlement building on what Bloomfield calls “disputed territories” and the slitting of the throats of children in their beds along with the grisly murder of their parents? Has political correctness taken us this far?
Bloomfield describes Bibi as “tone deaf,” “aggressive,” “riling the Palestinians,” “pandering,” and not being “statesman like.” Abbas, who frequently dedicates town squares to dead terrorists, is merely “tone deaf.” Imagine that!
To restate Bloomfield’s opening sentence, you’ve got to hand it to Doug Bloomfield, who somehow managed to turn international outrage over the brutal massacre of a young Jewish family on Shabbat as they slept in their beds into widespread criticism of the Israeli Prime Minister.’
Today, Israel — the only UN member State having other member States calling for its destruction — struggles to devise strategies to survive as it remains an embattled imperfect democracy in a sea of anti-Semitism. It is truly a shame we have to read these pretentions to moral equivalency in our local Jewish community paper. Perhaps we need a new editor.
Marty Gross
Livingston
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