Anti-Semitism of letter writers seems evident

Dear Editor: I recently read Fred Nagel’s letter to the editor (“Israel’s insidious influence on US foreign policy”) that was critical of U.S. policy regarding Israel, as well as Susan Puretz’s letter in response (“Anti-Semitic letter writer hides behind criticism of Israel”).

Although I don’t know if Nagel’s bias is conscious, in light of his citation of the biased book “The Israel Lobby and Foreign Policy,” by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, I thought Puretz was insightful regarding Nagel’s antiSemitism.

One reviewer, alluding to the anti-Semitic nature of book, wrote: “Put this one on the shelf next to ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and it will be right at home.” He wrote that the Mearsheimer/Wall book contains a long list of absurdities that prove the authors’ anti-Semitic bias, and he offered examples.

Another reviewer wrote: “The book is replete with errors, omissions, examples of tortured logic and perverse use of language [that it makes its] ‘analysis’ virtually useless.”

And finally, this opinion is offered by another reviewer regarding the book cited by Nagel: “It is an emotional, hateful screed in the manner of ‘Mein Kampf.’” With this in view — perhaps in light of Bill Maher’s recent characterization of the left’s support of the BDS movement as a “B.S. purity test by people who want to appear woke but actually slept through history class,” and Fred Nagel’s citation of “The Israel Lobby and Foreign Policy” — letter writer Steven Fornal (“Yes, Israel influences US political system”) might reconsider his claim that “Israel’s perfidy is so obvious” and admit that such perfidy might very well be in the antiSemitic eye of the beholder. George Civile

Gardiner