LETTERS

Re “Holocaust, Gaza images stir furor� April 30

Because I am a Jew and the granddaughter of a survivor of Bergen-Belsen, I too sent out graphic images of Jews in the Holocaust and pictures of Palestinians caught up in Israel’s recent Gaza offensive to friends, family and colleagues. I sent them because I was so disturbed by and ashamed of the Israeli assault on Gaza in the name of the Jewish people.

I learned about the plight of the displaced Palestinian people from my survivor grandfather, Henri van Leeuwen, a deeply religious Orthodox Jew who was firmly committed in words and deeds to maintaining a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

If he were alive today, he would be horrified by UCSB’s actions against Professor William I. Robinson, and even more horrified by Israel’s reenactment of the Warsaw Ghetto on the people of Gaza.

Karen Pomer

Los Angeles

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Although I may not be happy about a UCSB professor criticizing Israel for its relationship with its Arab neighbors, he certainly has the right to do so.

However, for him to compare the Israelis’ treatment of Palestinians with Nazism is so hateful and far from the truth that his authority to teach young people should be revoked.

Israelis have never advocated the destruction of the entire Arab race. Israelis have never set up ovens to burn Arabs. Israelis have never taken the human fat of Arabs and turned it into bars of soap, nor their flayed skin into lampshades. Serial numbers have not been involuntarily tattooed onto their skin.

All of that was done by the Nazis to Jews.

There is a line between disagreeing with a country’s actions and spreading hate. Where is Robinson’s hatred of what the Sudanese are doing in Darfur? Where is his condemnation of Hamas? Where is his criticism of the Chinese, the Saudis, the Iranians, the North Koreans and all of the other egregious injustices in the world today?

Having Robinson teach college students is wrong. Michael Waterman

Encino

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Why is it all right to speak about Israel and its victimhood but not about Palestine and its victimhood? What are supporters of Israel afraid of? Is admitting that sometimes Israel has made mistakes, continues to make mistakes and will make mistakes in the future somehow going to destroy its foundation?

To pretend that Israel is always right and the Arab world always wrong is a childish position. I support Robinson in his attempt to bring some perspective and balance to the equation.

Carol Marshall

Anaheim

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Robinson may be a scholar who teaches students to question their beliefs, but he is also an authority figure who determines students’ grades based on his own evaluation of their written and oral arguments. Is it a surprise that by boldly declaring his personal views on a highly sensitive and debatable issue, he intimidated two students so much that they dropped his class?

Robinson’s e-mail may not qualify as anti-Semitism by some standards, but it does lower the bar for academic professionalism and intellectual responsibility.

Jason Mandell

Los Angeles