(Editor’s note: The two letters below are in response to a July 2025 letter from Rachel Youdelman, which was, in turn, a response to “The Catastrophe Continues” in the June 2025 issue of the Community Alliance.)
No More Reciting Zionist Propaganda
This is in response to the pro-Zionist letter in the July issue. The facts ignored by this letter and the opinions stated reflect a point of view that was common in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, even among left-wing people. I was present in 1969 when H. Rap Brown told a large crowd at a Free Huey rally that in the struggle between Israel and the Palestinians we cannot be anywhere else but on the side of the Palestinians, and a gasp went up all over the Oakland Auditorium.
But the illusions about Israel promoted by the Zionists have lost their hold on people, as groups as non-radical as Amnesty International and Human Rights have documented the apartheid state, and a UN Special Committee and the UN Special Rapporteur, Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières and other experts have not only declared that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza against the Palestinians during its ongoing invasion and bombardment and control of the borders but also have provided abundant evidence of this fact.
The torture of captives and prisoners, the deliberate bombings of schools and hospitals and refugee camps, the shooting of civilians, even children, the attempts to starve the people of Palestine and deprive them even of water—all these are obvious and well-documented.
So reciting Zionist propaganda isn’t going to convince anyone anymore. The Israelis, including high government officials, have stated their intentions to get rid of all the people of Gaza—by killing them if they will not leave. It’s not a secret anymore.
So, it’s time to stop living in 1948. If reparations of territory were to be made for the genocide committed against Jewish people by the Germans, surely Israel should have been in Bavaria, not Palestine, because the Palestinians had nothing to do with it.
Leni Villagomez Reeves
Auberry
Meet with a Palestinian
Time to look in the mirror.
It’s easy for Jewish liberals to say, “Oh, the Native Americans were robbed of their land” or “Black people are being oppressed.” It’s a lot harder to have the courage to admit something harder to face.
Look in the mirror and say, “being anti-Zionist is not being anti-Semitic.” Then open up to some very hard-to-admit realities. The Zionists have continually been public about their intention to cleanse the Palestinians from their own land. Herzl [considered the father of modern political Zionism] even stated that he used the American policy of relentless displacement of Native peoples as the model for their policies.
What would you call it if the perpetrators weren’t Jewish?
The laws written by the Zionists in the early 1920s were constructed so that land could be “purchased” out from under families and villages that didn’t even have their land up for sale.
Here is the experience of a Palestinian friend whose land was voluntarily “purchased” in the late 1980s. A knock on his door early one morning. He opened the door to find a squad of IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers with machine guns pointed at his family. They handed him a paper that announced that his home, where his family had lived for 150 years, had been “purchased” by a Jewish family. He had 24 hours to vacate or the army would forcibly throw him out the next day. So he “agreed” to the “purchase.”
The land your own home is on was “purchased” from the local tribes the same way. Find a Palestinian neighbor, have tea with them and ask them the story of how they got here.
Dr. Joel D. Eis
Point Richmond
Cost of Policing in Fresno
Fresno is going above and beyond to over-police our community. There’s already too many over-zealous cops who use their badges as a way to intimidate and harass the people of this town.
Trust me, it’s not isolated to people of color; they harass and bother all people. As long as you fit their profile, then you’re screwed.
And yes, the unhoused community are at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to the cops. Like they don’t have a hard enough time as it is.
Use that money and build some shelters or permanent housing for them. Solve the problem, and stop making more problems.
Michelle LuAnn
Online comment
Addressing Attacks on Humanity
We are faith leaders of diverse religious traditions, and we are united in denouncing the unfolding actions of President Trump in Los Angeles. In a gross and calculated overreach of power—and in total disregard of the wishes of the Governor of California, the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department—the President unnecessarily and unilaterally deployed California’s National Guard to a mostly peaceful protest against aggressive ICE raids on community members.
The President further inflamed the situation by ordering 700 Marines into the same one-square mile of the city, using the force of the U.S. military in an attempt to stop a mostly peaceful protest by ordinary Americans exercising their constitutional right to free speech.
We have no doubt that Los Angeles is a testing ground for what will happen in other cities, as ICE raids spread to our schools, places of work and houses of worship. We are on the precipice of seeing widespread martial law in the United States.
We call on faith leaders, elected officials, business leaders and ordinary citizens to speak out now against this fast-moving rush into authoritarianism. We must speak up and speak out—make our voices heard in the streets and in our many public spaces of discourse and dialogue.
We call on faith leaders to speak from their traditions and values to address the attacks on the humanity and dignity of all residents of our country. We call for peaceful action in its varieties of forms, from calls to elected officials to peaceful acts of civil disobedience.
It is incumbent upon us all to rally more and more Americans to join in the fight to save our democracy at this dire and unprecedented time.
Rev. Simon Biasell, Pastor, The Big Red Church UCC; Rev. Dr. Norman Broadbent, First Congregational, United Church of Christ (retired); Jim Grant, member, St. Paul Catholic Newman Center; Rev. Jim Healey; Professor Sudarshan Kapoor, Hindu Faith; Jonathan Mark, pastor, First Mennonite Church of Reedley; Rev. Deacon Nancy Key, St. James Episcopal Cathedral; Rev. William Knezovich, Our Savior’s Lutheran Church; Rev. Tim Kutzmark, minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno; Dr. Michael McKeever, pastor, Mennonite Community Church; Rev. Akiko Miyake-Stoner, United Methodist Clergy; The Rt. Rev. David C. Rice, bishop, Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin; Pastor Tom Sims, The Fellowship of Joy; Deacon John Supino, St. Paul Catholic Newman Center; Rabbi Laura Novak Winer, Hebrew Union College; Rabbi Rick Winer
Re “Bredefeld Uses BOS as a Soapbox”
Thank you very much for this enlightening article. As has been the case on several previous occasions, [Fresno County Supervisor Garry] Bredefeld is a master of grandstanding and division. He generates much heat but little movement or progress. Similar laws regarding catalytic converters have been written in a number of cities throughout the state without creating the animosity.
James Mendez
Fresno
