I am Jewish and lost most of my family in Hitler’s genocide. Recently I joined others in Waterville to protest Israel’s latest attacks on Lebanon and continued genocide in Palestine.

Israel’s exploding pager massacre killed at least 30 and left thousands seriously wounded, including children, hospital workers and firefighters. This is terrorism. Yet, the mainstream media reserves the “T” word for Arabs, not Israelis.

Israel is pounding Lebanon’s residential neighborhoods, hospitals and schools with U.S.-made bombs, just as they continue to bomb hospitals, U.N. shelters and tent encampments in Gaza, day after day.

The Morning Sentinel quoted Israel’s U.N. ambassador who claimed Israel is a peaceful nation. The irony of this statement is appalling.

There is nothing peaceful about Israel. Israel violently expelled Palestinians from their homes in 1948 and again in 1967, taking more land and establishing an apartheid state with occupation soldiers bursting into homes during the night, checkpoints, Jews-only roads, bulldozers destroying Palestinian houses, Jewish settlers violently attacking Palestinian farmers, total control over water and electricity, and a siege on Gaza since 2005 keeping the population on a bare minimum diet with periodic “mowing the lawn” bombings.

Israel turned Gaza into the world’s largest open-air prison. All resistance, peaceful or not, was met with Israeli violence. Hezbollah supports the Palestinian resistance and its rocket attacks have focused on Israeli military targets, not civilians.

Israel could not continue its war of retribution without U.S. military assistance. This is a local issue, because bomb components manufactured here in Maine are killing children in Gaza and now in Lebanon too. Our tax dollars pay for this, while many of us struggle with rising housing costs, soaring school tuition and outrageous costs for medical care.

To understand more, read mondoweiss.net; free and informative.

Jamila Levasseur

Waldo