Keith Raffel (7/19/26 LJW) claims to defend Israel against charges of genocide. Instead he condemns Israel by faint praise.

Raffel provides detailed arguments why Hamas are bad guys, all Arabs are bad guys, Israelis are victims, Israelis are good guys, not all dead Gazans were killed by Israel and Democrats are dishonest opportunists. All of this might or might not be true, yet none of this actually addresses legal requirements for genocide. Based only on Raffel’s defense by distraction, an unbiased observer might suspect that genocide is more likely than not.

In reality, Israel has occupied Gaza, removed Hamas from its leadership, killed some 3% of its women and children, systematically murdered health care workers and NGO workers and reporters and UN officials, destroyed 90% of the housing stock and continues to make military attacks on residences. An illegal Israel siege is enforcing slow starvation and deprivation of water, electricity, gasoline, sewage disposal and phone service. Meanwhile, Israeli leaders have expressed a desire to drive out all Gazans, while their top leader is a wanted war criminal. Most outsiders would view this as genocide. And in fact, the top medical journal Lancet has described it as genocide.

David Burress,

Lawrence