Two sides to Israel
I was both amused and disturbed by letter writer Robert Pickard’s suggestion that Uri Dromi’s May 26 Other Views column was “disgusting, misleading, anti-Israel, and , dare I say, anti-Semitic.”
I was amused because Dromi is both Israeli (he served as a colonel in the Israeli air force as well as the spokesman for the Rabin and Peres governments) and Jewish. I was disturbed because I find it appalling that anyone who openly criticizes the Israeli government is labeled as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.
The fact that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East doesn’t mean that it is free of corruption. What it should and does mean, however, is that it is the one place in the Middle East in which a citizen can openly criticize the government without fear of reprisal.
A democracy that punishes dissent is a democracy in name only. Look at Venezuela.
David A. Silk,
This story was originally published May 31, 2015 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Two sides to Israel."