Not ‘Embarrassed’

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“Much of the American Jewish community was troubled and embarrassed by the number of Gaza protesters’ deaths and the negative U.S. media coverage,” according to Gary Rosenblatt (“Probing The Divide …”, May 25). I am not aware of any polls of American Jews on the subject, but if a pollster were to ask an unbiased question about the Gaza violence, I don’t think he would find that most Jews are “embarrassed.”

From my conversations with friends, neighbors and fellow synagogue-goers over the past few weeks, my sense is that a large majority of Jews understand that the Israelis are not trying to murder innocent “protesters,” but are shooting back in self-defense at firebomb and grenade throwers who are trying to storm Israel’s border.

As for the negative media coverage, nobody can be pleased about that, but frankly, friends of Israel have been enduring wildly distorted media coverage of Israel since the 1970s. These days, when we read or hear absurd accounts of Israeli soldiers supposedly massacring “peaceful, innocent demonstrators,” many of us shrug our shoulders and accept that as par for the course. When something has become virtually inevitable —as anti-Israel media coverage has— there’s no point in losing sleeping over it.

Vice President, Religious Zionists Of America

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