TO THE EDITOR:
I was deeply saddened to see David Horowitz, an extremely right-wing academic, invited to speak to students on campus. For those who see the occupation of Palestine as a complex issue, his position that labels Arabs and Muslims as “racist” and “violent” people is both backwards and dangerous, and one that does nothing to promote a peaceful future.
According to the United Nations, between July 7 and August 26 of last year, over 2,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza as a result of Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge.” Of those killed, 501 were children and 257 were women.
Israel has also admitted to forcibly injecting Ethiopian Jewish migrants with birth control, many of whom also currently live in much higher rates of unemployment and poverty than other Israelis.
The majority of us around the world who critique Israel do not do so as an attack on the right of Jewish people to a homeland. We critique Israel because their current state governance is one that regularly starves, assaults and imprisons Palestinian and African people and denies Palestinians access to their own land.
In 1948, my grandparents fled their homes in Palestine fearing for their lives and were never able to return, like millions of displaced Palestinians around the world.
David Horowitz will never justifiably paint my people with his broad strokes of prejudice.
As poet Rafeef Ziadah states in a spoken word piece, “We Palestinians wake up every morning to teach the rest of the world life, sir.”
Zaina Alsous
