To the editor:

With all of the news circulating about the Israel/Palestine conflict, I feel that many news stations are getting the facts of the matter incorrectly, and many people are only seeing the side that Israel wants them to see. Super Bowl Sunday was a day where many people celebrated and enjoyed life, however, life in Gaza could not be more different. The neo-colonial ethnostate that is Israel, ruthlessly and without care for the innocent launched strike upon strike on the city of Rafah. During the horrid siege on the people of Gaza, Palestinians were assured by Israel that they could move south to safety. Israel, however, is no better than a lying snake that strikes knowing they will not be held accountable. So far, nearly 95 civilians have been slaughtered by the genocidal state of Israel, half of these poor souls being children.

The Western news will not tell you this. Currently, Israel has been free to torment and carry out their ethnic cleansing on the people of Palestine, and many people, especially right-wing nationalists, claim that they have the freedom to do so in self-defense. This is a very blind and hateful viewpoint to hold, as no nation or people have the right to self-defense against the people they oppress. In Gaza, they are running out of food, water, and shelter, are subject to disease, and have little to no healthcare, education is all but a dream of many, and this is completely fine according to our government. It is sickening and horrid that we are witnessing genocide right now, and people have the guts to claim that it is fine. Look into the ethnic cleansing right now, if you even remotely believe that Israel is in the right, you are mistaken. Israel has no right to send unguided missiles into an area of two million, the size of only two Washington DCs.

10,000 children have been slain in the over 100 days of onslaught by the IDF, Israel has been sending lie after lie, and ads are being used to claim that they are the ones who are being attacked, this is genuinely disgusting, and those responsible for them are less than human. Benjamin Netanyahu, the mastermind behind this massacre, is backed by the most powerful nation in the world, getting billions of dollars from the US each year. The idea that Palestinians are the ones to blame is completely moronic and is not based in reality. Though many people will claim that Hamas is the reason for this war, I tell them, to stop talking. Hamas was formed by men whose families had been murdered by Israel, and, even though their actions are sometimes horrid, can not compare to the mass ethnic cleansing by Israel. Israel is the aggressor, the killer, the enemy, and any support for them is done by people who do not deserve the title of human. \“Never Again,\” words spoken after the Holocaust, promising that there will never be another genocide of the likes again. Well, it is happening again. Witnesses have shown that Israel is senselessly murdering innocent men, women, and children, destroying homes, churches, mosques, and every single building in Gaza.

Israel deserves no help, their government needs to crumble, and those who partake in it need to be punished for the severity of their crimes. Starving children and shooting them with rockets, gassing them, blockading them off from help, all crimes committed by the leaders of Israel, and all reasons that the government needs to be dismantled, and crushed. There should be no sympathy for Israel, sympathy goes to those who have suffered, sympathy goes to Gaza, and the Israeli people, not the government, who have lost family because of this brutal occupation and slaughter.

Brayden Haynes

New Ulm