Israel haters ignore facts on the ground in Gaza

After reading Nathan Feldman’s commentary in The Baltimore Sun, I must respond to the thoughts of a “progressive Jewish American” since I consider myself a real “progressive Jewish American” (“Gaza deaths demand action,” May15).

His first paragraph is very touching and incomplete since his insinuation that Israel is required to allow 750,000 Palestinians return to their “homeland” totally ignores the facts that many hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced to leave Morocco, Tunesia, Algeria, Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Will there be an equal welcome from these totalitarian regimes? I doubt it. His sympathy for the Hamas-run inept and crooked government now in Gaza is sadly misplaced. Was he sympathetic when the Hamas leaders and henchmen were throwing PLO officials off of rooftops 10 years ago? Was he sympathetic regarding the parents who brought their young children to a riot their leaders organized and then blamed on another country?

Last but not least, he admonishes Sen. Ben Cardin to introduce legislation that would allow the United States to eliminate its $3.1 billion in military financing to Israel. Would that reduction in foreign aid be advantageous to the progressive Jewish American he professes to be? It would then be a race to see whether Syria-Iran or the Palestinians would be the first to eliminate Israel. Progressive Jewish Americans require intelligent discussion, but, unfortunately, his discourse is simply retrogressive.