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To the editor:
James Baldwin saw deeper than most, but you don’t need to be a philosopher to know Zionism was born out of European antisemitism, and Israel was not created for the Jewish people, rather to “serve the Western Interests.”
He wrote more on what Israel is that no geo-strategist would debate, which is worth looking into; however, I’d like to offer my favorite lesson of his, words the moment I read them I immediately knew to be a universal truth and nothing in my lived experience since has shown me otherwise: “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
While we debate who’s to blame and who is the greater evil, let’s ask two fundamental questions: How many Israeli children has Hamas killed this week, how many are they going to kill next week? Then ask yourselves the same questions about Israel.
I choose to side with whoever isn’t killing kids on any given day. That this isn’t the most popular — that this isn’t the only view held in our community — says everything James would say about who we are.
John Mulry
Capitola