Outrage
Please thank this author for her measured response to the outrageous column by Mr. Zebulon. I hope the editorial finds a way to apologize and correct his lies. It is not a question of point of view but as outrageous a set of statements as those produced by holocaust deniers. I expect better from the Bohemian.
Richard Burg
Healdsburg
Unsettled
A friend recently expressed dismay that the Bohemian published “Unsettling” by Michael Zebulon because the piece was “so full of lies.” I admire your Open Mic policy. Opinions buttressed by fabrications, lack of historical knowledge and ideology are best kept in the open because this provides a public forum for clarification and refutation. Mr. Zebulon’s article reads like propaganda. After stating the liberal-progressive labels that frame the argument in his favor, Mr. Zebulon states his first lie: “most of the land in the unincorporated territories is still unsettled by anybody.” The lands of the West Bank have been farmed by Palestinians for millennia. Burning Palestinian olive groves and confiscating grazing lands has been par for the course in establishing Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Not to mention terrorism. Just a few weeks ago, 60 masked, armed settlers attacked a West Bank Palestinian village, slicing the throats of three sheep, breaking windows, throwing stones, one of which fractured the skull of a three-year-old boy. Other mis-statements follow. For example, the West Bank territories are recognized internationally as “occupied.” It is the supremacist, colonizer mindset that denies indigenous people the right to live on the lands of their ancestors. Israel is no different than the United States or South Africa in that regard. All are nations that appropriated land from indigenous peoples who neither had nor understood European concepts of private property, nation state sovereignty dictates or manifest destiny.
Cynthia Poten
Sebastopol
