More loose words from the left

Dear Editor:
We in Newfoundland may think ourselves safely remote from the troubles of Palestine and the reach of its Israeli tormentors. But we’re not.
On May 7, ‘23, our then Premier Andrew Furey and then Immigration Minister Jerry Byrne publicly adopted on our behalf the “legally non-binding” definition of Anti-Semitism that, put simply, makes any criticism of the Jewish apartheid state of Israel a de facto slander against all Jews everywhere.
That summer of ‘23 I several times challenged these leaders to debate with me their right to endorse Israel carte blanche on our behalf. I got no takers of course.
Then five months to the day later came Oct 7, ‘23. In the yet unending bloody aftermath, the world and now even Newfoundland can no longer doubt that modern Israel has been setting us a standard of merciless genocide that would have embarrassed Adolph Hitler and Genghis Khan.
Today, in 2025, that small and psychopathic nation on the other side of the planet is still endorsed by our provincial government in our name.
I therefore again call on our provincial government to retract that May 7, ‘23 endorsement of Israel. If not, I again dare any of them to debate the matter with me in any local public forum of their choice.
Frank Holden,
St. John’s

Editor’s Note: The word genocide, which means the deliberate extermination of a race of people, gets thrown around loosely by opponents of the Jewish state. And yet, during the period from 1990 to 2023, the population of Palestine increased from 1.98 million people to 5.17 million people. That is a growth rate of 161.1 per cent in 33 years. The destruction and death in Palestine is horrifying and shameful. But remember why it is happening. This latest war in Gaza was caused by Palestinian terrorists and residents crossing the border into Israel on October 7, 2023, and butchering over 1,200 people, mostly civilians. They raped women, killed babies, burned seniors alive and kidnapped over 200 others as hostages. They then crawled back into a warren of underground bunkers and caves, some of them strategically placed under hospitals, schools and places of worship, to use the Palestinian population above them as human shields from the Israeli defence forces who have little choice but to hunt them down, at the price of tremendous human carnage. If the Palestinian terror groups, and many Palestinians generally, were to disavow their oft-stated aim to wipe Israel and Jews from the face of the Earth, and instead genuinely extend a hand in peace, this atrocious carnage would not be happening. Jews have lived in what is now called Palestine for over 3,000 years, despite many others having tried to expel them, the old Roman Empire particularly successfully. But to contend they don’t belong in Palestine is almost like saying the Inuit don’t belong to the arctic. It’s shameful and surprising that so many people on the left have become so radicalized against Jews, particularly considering the discrimination the Jewish people, who were the victims of an actual genocide, have suffered through history. There are terrible things happening in Palestine. As in most wars, atrocities can be laid at the feet of both sides. But to say Israel is conducting a genocide, or to describe the Jewish state as a “psychopathic nation,” throws more fuel into a furnace that is fired by hate and does nothing to encourage the cooler reasonableness that is necessary for peace.