Jan. 4 Letters: Our Readers’ Opinions

A straight face?

How long can the hypocritical Biden administration keep a straight face, faking concern for civilian casualties in Gaza while blocking United Nations calls for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid to come in, while aiding and abetting Benjamin “Bibi the Butcher” Netanyahu’s ongoing genocidal mass slaughter of Palestinians?

Pope Francis has called the Israeli actions in Gaza “terrorism that has gone far beyond war.” Israel Defense Forces sniper terrorists killed innocent civilians at the Catholic Holy Family Parish in Gaza recently, where the majority of Christian families had sought refuge. Francis said there were no members of Hamas at the parish. After the shootings, bulldozers blocked the entrance to the church with a pile of cars that were in the street.

The Israeli scholar Yeshayahu Leibowitz warned if Israel did not separate church and state and end its occupation of Palestine, it would give rise to a corrupt rabbinate that would warp Judaism into a fascist cult. “Israel,” he said, “would not deserve to exist and it would not be worthwhile to preserve it.”

The goal of the Zionist state has always been the occupation of all of historic Palestine and the eternal subjugation or extermination of all Palestinians. Israel’s settler colonial project perpetuates the cycle of violence against the indigenous inhabitants of historic Palestine. Palestinians have been forced to speak back in the language Israel speaks.

It’s not a war against Hamas but against Palestinians. The goal is genocide and the ethnic cleansing of 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza.

Mike Epstein

Clarkston

A response to letter

At the risk of perpetuating an argument, I have to respond to C. Edward Collins’ Dec. 19 letter.

Collins implies that I’m wealthy. I am not.

Collins calls my concerns about homeless people defacing city parks and “... pooping in the street” a lack of empathy. Not true. I have empathy for these people’s plight. I do not agree, however, that they have a right, because of their plight, to simply take public property and do with it whatever they wish, particularly pooping on it. Nor do they have the right to vandalize or live on property paid for with taxes for all of the people (not just the homeless) to use.

Collins says I refuse to “pay my part” of the Asotin County stormwater upgrade. No, I don’t owe a stormwater “fee,” because it is an illegally imposed tax. This has been so ruled in one federal case and one in the Idaho Supreme Court.

If commissioners would put that tax on a ballot and voters approved it, I would happily pay it, as I do all legal taxes.

Collins says the taxpayers should help the homeless in our city, without proposing a solution other than encouraging more homeless to squat on public property.

While offering some ideas possible to “help” Clarkston homeless, Collins does not offer a way to pay for those things.

Nothing prevents Collins from allowing any number of homeless people to live on his property, or from him providing them with food, clothing, or bathroom facilities.

Rick Rogers

Clarkston