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To the Editor: 

Devorah Liss’ letter (Aug. 26), deploring a previous letter which she finds insensitive to anti-Jewish vandalism simply perpetuates the churlish insensitivity of many Jewish Americans to Palestinians and Arab-Americans. 

Liss says a Passover bombing in Israel is the culmination of violence there, ignoring the thousands of Palestinians who have been killed by Israel in its brutal, illegal occupation. She frets about insignificant damage to Hillel, and is silent about the total destruction by arson of a large, beautiful Palestinian church in Los Altos Hills that will cost a million dollars to rebuild. And she speaks only of anti-Jewish “attacks,” not of the harassment of those who are or “look Arab.” Violence against these folks has caused San Francisco to distribute “We are not the enemy” posters. Perhaps they're needed in Berkeley as well.  

When Jewish Americans break with Israel once and for all and join in solidarity with Palestinian-Americans and other supporters of freedom for Palestine, there will be much greater moral clarity on this issue. 

Progressive whites, many of them Jews, helped lead the fight against South African apartheid; progressive Jews can do the same here in the worldwide struggle against the racist Israeli state. 

Kenneth E. Scudder,  

San Francisco