The recent column “Blame Hamas, not Jews, for Gaza War,” [Recorder, June 11] gave rise to thought. As a lifelong supporter of Israel and one who has always admired the Zionists who have gone before (Ben-Gurion, Dayan, Meir, etc.) I have to say that the premise of singularly blaming Hamas for the war needs a bit of fine tuning. Granted, Hamas is a murderous, genocidal tribe that doesn’t care a hoot about the Gazans who they allegedly represent. In days gone by Israel would have done what it needed to do to confront these monsters. Today’s Israel, however, is not the Israel of its past. Today, it is manipulated by a man, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose sole interest is not to govern it, but to rule it for his own ego. To do so, he has aligned himself with religious fundamentalists who are so extreme in their religiosity that many don’t even believe in the state of Israel, never mind not giving a damn about Palestinian suffering. These are Jews, not Israelis. As long as the state of Israel is manipulated by Bibi and this crowd of nuts against the nuts of Hamas, then Israel and its promise of a Jewish homeland will suffer for it. I yearn for the days of Ben-Gurion and Israeli/Jewish integrity and dignity.

Philip Brodeur

Leyden