Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2026, pp. 95-97
Other People’s Mail
BILL TO INTEGRATE ISRAEL INTO U.S. MILITARY MUST BE OPPOSED
To the Orlando Sentinel, June 25, 2026
We are Americans. We are not Israelis. We may wish to support Israel, but we need to maintain our complete independence and sovereignty.
Few issues are as threatening to American sovereignty as what is proposed in Section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act, a congressional defense policy bill, for fiscal 2027.
It would intrinsically integrate Israel into our military complex. Every area of defense technology including artificial intelligence, quantum technology, autonomous systems, directed energy, network integration, cyber, biotechnology and data fusion would be integrated.
Israel and America would be as one. Section 224 is vast, sweeping and totally un-American.
All Americans should oppose this traitorous, seditious act. The congressmen and senators who support this provision should be voted out of office because Section 224 is so vile. Notify your congressmen and senators and demand that it not be enacted before it’s too late.
—Terrence J. O’Loughlin, Tamarac, FL
ISRAEL CRITICS WIN MAINE PRIMARIES
To the Portland Press Herald, June 27, 2026
The recent Democratic Party primary wins of Graham Platner (Senate) and Matt Dunlap (House of Representatives) point to a momentous change: Palestine now matters in Maine politics.
The Gaza genocide and economic populism are driving voter change. Endless images of dismembered children, a revolt against sending our tax dollars overseas and rising gas prices blamed on the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran are upending past uniform support for Israel. In nationwide polls, more Americans now sympathize with the Palestinian people than with Israelis. And in Maine, the biggest cheer at Platner rallies has been his line that, “We should be building hospitals in Maine, not bombing children in Gaza,” while 2nd District runoff winner Dunlap turned down Israel lobby campaign funding.
The outlier among Democratic Party candidates was State Sen. Joe Baldacci, endorsed by the Democratic Majority for Israel political action committee, and who has justified the genocide in Gaza by repeating the Zionist talking point that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” This moral and political myopia cost him dearly. In the runoff to determine the CD2 primary victor, the preponderance of votes of candidates not aligned with Israel-first policies did not go to him.
The November general election will serve as the real litmus test of political change. But even on the Republican side, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are airing the idea that U.S. interests are not synonymous with unconditional support for Israel.
—Nathan Paradis, Portland, ME
COLORADO CANDIDATE RIGHT TO CRITICIZE ISRAEL
To The Denver Post, June 27, 2026
Re: “Kiros’ candidacy scares me as liberal Jewish woman,” June 25, guest commentary.
As a Jewish woman, I was upset by Rabbi Rachel Kobrin’s use of her liberalism and womanhood to attack Melat Kiros because she supposedly thinks the state of Israel should not exist. I want to add that we fought the state of South Africa as an apartheid state that was violently separating and killing its Black native citizens.
In the same way, Israel cannot continue to exist as an apartheid state according to its own law. It has separate laws which do not protect other peoples that are native to its land, and from whom the formation of Israel became possible by emptying their villages.
This pain is a truth I, as a Jew, must actively try to repair. In three years, Israel has not just fought back against the attack on Oct. 7, but continues to kill Palestinian civilians. A recent U.N. report shows Israel is specifically targeting children.
Israel has destroyed food, water and other means of survival in Gaza. It has imprisoned without charge doctors, medics, teachers, the elderly and children. Reports of the conditions in the prisons are unspeakable. Israel does not respect the current “ceasefire” in which it continues to bomb and kill Palestinian civilians daily.
Those who have not been killed by Israel’s bombs die of starvation and disease in even greater numbers. The houses, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, churches and rare irreplaceable artifacts of culture have been turned to dust. This is the very definition of genocide! It is immoral and against my religion of Judaism.
Kiros speaks out against genocide because her family has experienced it in Ethiopia. We need people in Congress who will stop sending American bombs to do Israel’s dirty work. She is a woman, and more than a “liberal,” she has courage and love for all humanity.
—Vivian Weinstein, Denver, CO
[Melat Kiros defeated 30-year incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette (D) in the June 30 primary. When confronted by a voter about her support for Israel in March 2026, DeGette hastily declared, “If the only issue that you care about is this issue, then you should not vote for me.”]
ISRAEL’S INDEFENSIBLE ASSAULT ON PALESTINIANS
To the Duluth News Tribune, June 11, 2026
I keep hearing the claim that the United States should support Israel because its residents are “God’s chosen people.” If that’s the case, why are we not holding them to a higher standard?
What is happening in Gaza—not to mention the West Bank and Lebanon—is disgraceful and disgusting. By continuing to fund and arm Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s regime, the U.S. is complicit. I don’t want my tax dollars going to a barbaric government that has killed more than 21,000 children since the start of fighting in autumn 2023. The Israeli military has killed aid workers, journalists and innocent people trying to get food to survive. There is no excuse.
The argument that it is anti-Semitic to criticize Israel is believed by millions of people. This line of thinking just doesn’t make sense. One can love the Jewish people while simultaneously criticizing the government and military of Israel. They are not the same thing. Criticizing Cuba or Sudan is not an act of racism. There is just too much at stake for people to keep falling into this trap.
Look at satellite images of Gaza before and after Oct. 7, 2023. Oct. 7 was an unjustifiable tragedy, but Israel’s continued atrocities are not justified either. The sheer amount of destruction across the Gaza Strip is shocking. It was a beautiful place, full of real, living people—people who had hopes, fears and dreams, just like you and me, and people who worshipped God in their own way. Now, over 80 percent of the infrastructure in Gaza is either destroyed or damaged.
We need lobbyists from AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) out of our politics. And we badly need to stop funding the tragedy unfolding in Palestine.
—Erik Bergholm, Cloquet, MN
CHRISTIANS MUST SHOW CONSISTENCY ON ISRAEL
To the Santa Cruz Sentinel, June 30, 2026
Critics see a painful contradiction within parts of American Christianity: some believers enthusiastically support the bombing of Arab populations through their political advocacy, only to later organize humanitarian drives, mission trips and bread distributions for the very people whose suffering they helped justify. They condemn the hunger of Palestinian children while defending the policies and military campaigns that contribute to that hunger. They pray for the wounded while supporting the machinery that creates the wounded.
The same hands that vote for more weapons also hand out food parcels. The same lips that proclaim, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” often remain silent as bombs fall on civilians made in the image of God. What is presented as compassion can become a way of easing conscience without confronting the deeper question: How can followers of Jesus, who taught love of neighbor and mercy toward the vulnerable, reconcile support for devastating warfare with acts of charity toward its victims?
The criticism is not directed at all Christians, but at a form of faith that risks substituting selective compassion for consistent discipleship.
—Don Nassar, Santa Cruz, CA
PALESTINIANS “THROWN OUT THE WINDOW”
To the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, June 20, 2026
Included in my list of four favorite Arkansas Democrat-Gazette writers, Philip Martin and Steve Straessle leave me begging for more.
Steve’s June 15 column, under the title “The Shoe,” resonated so profoundly. “There’s a single baby shoe at the intersection of University and Father Tribou Street....it’s barely moved in the days I’ve seen it. Tiny. Innocent. Intact...The pessimist, reeking of melancholy, tells me there’s tragedy in that little sneaker. Someone, unable to look at it anymore, threw it out the window.”
Had I still been teaching composition, this column would have been required reading.
And the pessimist in me traveled to the Gaza rubble under which thousands of dead children, along with their siblings, parents and grandparents, have been decomposing. And for the thousands of living Palestinian child-amputees, there will never be any shoes or, for that matter, prosthetic therapy. And especially for the babies left to die in their incubators, no knit baby boots to cover their fragile bouncy feet.
Add to this the imposed deliberate starvation and daily killings. And these are the people who keep reminding us that evil should never (“Never Again”) rear up its ugly face.
Just because Palestinians don’t have the money to buy American politicians (think AIPAC and all its hybrids), that doesn’t mean that Palestinians have to be “thrown out the window” of a pathetic world.
—Raouf J. Halaby, Arkadelphia, AR
U.S. OWES REPARATIONS TO FAMILIES OF MINAB VICTIMS
To The Morning Call, June 27, 2026
On Feb. 28, my four grandchildren were sitting in their classrooms for a normal day of school. Half a world away in the city of Minab, Iran, at least 120 children were in their own classrooms when what was likely a U.S. Tomahawk missile dropped into their elementary school, killing them, plus dozens of teachers and aides. My grandchildren came home to their parents after school. In Minab, parents and grandparents spent that day searching for anything that remained of their children.
President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have not formally acknowledged that we were to blame, saying it remains under investigation. Hegseth told us that his Operation Epic Fury would have “no stupid rules of engagement.” Perhaps if we abided by those rules, his intelligence personnel would have better scrutinized the data falsely indicating there was a valid military target at that site.
We have seen that Trump does not admit errors, and Hegseth proudly flashes a “Deus Vult” (God wills it) tattoo on his bicep. I suggest to both gentlemen that making America great again might include readily admitting this horrific error to the world and providing $1.776 billion as reparation to the families of those children.
—George M. Beris, Allentown, PA
IRAN WILL NOT ACCEPT DEAL ON TRUMP’S TERMS
To the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, June 3, 2026
It’s almost amusing to hear President Donald Trump say that the war with Iran is won and the Iranians are desperate for a deal. In fact he is the one desperate for a deal and the war isn’t over until the Iranians say it is. It was beyond obvious that Iran, if attacked, would close the Strait of Hormuz and the impact that would have on the world including the United States.
Sure, Iran would feel the pain, but it is betting that a theocratic dictatorship can endure more pain than a democracy. It’s a good bet because there is strong bipartisan and political pressure on Trump to end an unpopular war whose strategy and even raison d’être have never been satisfactorily explained.
The series of deadlines for resuming attacks—whose deadlines are inevitably extended—show that Iran is nowhere near making a deal on Trump’s terms.
—Jim King, Waikiki, HI
WHAT HAS THE U.S. ACHIEVED FROM THE IRAN WAR?
To the Los Angeles Times, June 17, 2026
We have a peace deal with Iran (“U.S. and Iran agree to peace deal, Pakistan says,” June 14). There are many questions as to what happens next.
Both President Donald Trump and Iran are claiming victory. What would constitute victory for the U.S.? Would it be the tens of billions of dollars the war has already cost, the loss of U.S. personnel life and the number of wounded, the depletion of U.S. weapons stock or the huge reduction in the U.S. strategic oil reserves? What about the toll on our personnel and ships stationed for months around Iran, the damage inflicted by Iran on U.S. assets in Mideast countries, the higher cost of gas for the American people and the cost for the expensive defensive munitions? Did we support the Iranian people as promised? Has Iran agreed to stop supporting Hezbollah, the Houthis and Hamas?
So what did we get for all that it has cost us? We got nothing other than an agreement to talk and fleetingly hoping for the best. So much for the claim of victory.
—Sid Pelston, Marina del Rey, CA
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