Dear Sir,

Reading how Social Justice Bermuda has responded to the events of October 7 is troubling and disheartening.

To witness the torture and slaughter of more than 1,400 civilians in Israel and conclude that this “military action” is justified by Palestinian grievances is shameful and ignorant; shameful that one can even begin to legitimise the burning alive and beheading of babies, the rape and torture of young women, and the abduction of Holocaust survivors. Ignorant because the apologists for Hamas atrocities have no understanding of the region’s history, brushing aside the Jewish people’s millennia-long connection to the land of Israel, overlook Hamas’s victimisation of their own people, claim that Israel practises apartheid when non-Jews have exactly the same rights in Israel as Jews, refer to a “brutal occupation” when Israel has had no presence in Gaza for 15 years, claim Palestinians are imprisoned in Gaza when border closures have been implemented only in the face of terrorist incursions leading to the murder of Israeli civilians.

One might also ask why Israel’s critics never seem to mention that Egypt keeps its border with Gaza closed because they, too, have been victims of Palestinian terrorism or that not one of their fellow Arab neighbours is willing to accept Gazan refugees.

Perhaps most importantly, these critics of Israel never mention the multiple occasions when Palestinians rebuffed opportunities to have their own country because their Hamas and Fatah overlords preferred to continue their efforts to exterminate the Jewish state. The critics also never admit that enough money has poured into Gaza over the past 50 years to build proper housing, infrastructure and facilities for its residents, but Hamas has diverted those funds to the pockets of their leaders and to the building tunnels and rockets to terrorise Israelis.

No one has the right to dictate to Israel how it should protect its citizenry from the savagery it has had to endure for 75 years, and no one has the right to distort history and reality to demonstrate their progressive virtue.

HENRY ROTH

Montreal, Canada