BradfordToday and InnisfilToday welcome letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to an article about the cancellation of a film screening at the Bradford library, published March 13.
The war (genocide) that is taking place in Palestine has been brutal, and a matter of great concern to many.
We often go about our day dealing with our own concerns and needs, but the death and grief of this conflict touch us all.
This can happen in any country when a power struggle takes place, and this is a power struggle.
It is Israel refusing Palestine its right to exist as a state, and continuing to occupy land that does not belong to it.
In order to make sense of it, and to be a caring member of this world we live in (for we are all connected), we have to see all sides of the story.
I lived in the Netherlands as a child during the Second World War, and heard my father speak of the plight of the Jews, and that many Dutch people stepped forward to help where possible.
We know of the atrocities and degradation faced by Indigenous people here in our country, in the United States and in Australia, and we have learned to listen to all the stories.
We know of the plight of the Uyghurs in China, and the struggles of many other marginalized groups of people in countries where power struggles take place.
And all this suffering is caused, too often, by leaders who want more power, more land.
So, as citizens of this world we all inhabit, we have to care for each other, and listen to the stories of all.
We are well aware of the Jewish Holocaust, for it cannot be ignored, but the same compassion shown to them needs to be shown to the Palestinian people who are being massacred. The Jewish community wants our compassion, and they need to show the same to others.
There are already many Jewish people who protest against what Israel is doing, for siding with the Palestinians is not ‘anti-Jewish’ but ‘anti-Zionism.’
If the Jewish Holocaust Museum advocates denouncing “any and all hatred against any and all groups,” it would not want this Jewish Bradford Association to silence critics of Israel, and stop the showing of this film, saying that doing so is “antisemitic.” It’s not antisemitic, but speaking out against the policy of the Israeli government.
One group of people cannot cause our library to censor what we see. That is against the library board’s own mandate of diversity, inclusion and information.
So, let the film, 200 Meters, be shown at the library. We have the right and the responsibility to see all sides and respond with compassion, integrity and faith in our fellow citizens that we all know this is not anti-Jewish, but pro-freedom for all.
Leni Vander Kooij
Bradford