To the editor:

This letter is being written by an American Jew, a supporter of Israel’s right to exist as a nation in peace. From that perspective I think that Israel is making a grave mistake in its assault on Gaza to destroy the terrorist murderers called Hamas. In its counterattack it is doing the work of its enemy.

By collaterally killing thousands of civilians, it is creating more extremists, bringing on itself a seething anger from the world-wide Palestinian diaspora and from neighboring countries, and condemnation from the United Nations. Don’t forget that the United States lost the world’s admiration in its ill-considered wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 that caused tens of thousands of civilian deaths and after 20 years of war resulted in an Afghan Taliban victory. Israel, acting from similar understandable sorrow and rage, is making a similarly immoral mistake whose consequences, military, political and social, will probably have worldwide impact. It must destroy Hamas, but it must stop destroying civilians — innocent men, women, and children!

Haskell Springer,

Lawrence