Public Comment

I read your October 19th email about the Hamas attack on October 7th with a heavy heart. Being one of your Jewish constituents I would have liked to have read a note of consolation, not twelve days after the Hamas attack on Israel and not a high-handed statement that tries to equate a calculated and savage attack with the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza. Your colleagues, particularly Susan and Mark, responded much more quickly and with an authenticity that I find lacking in your email. 

Your district contains most of the Berkeley Eruv — did you know that? It’s a central district for Jewish residents of Berkeley, many of whom have family and friends in Israel. Had you swiftly and simply acknowledged the pain your constituents are feeling, that would have been helpful. 

The NYTimes Daily Podcast just broadcast an interview with a mother whose son had his arm blown off and who was then taken hostage. They immigrated to Israel from Berkeley.  

The son is my daughter’s age and he was dancing at a music festival. He and friends hid in a bomb shelter. A Muslim Bedouin man tried to tell the terrorists that there were only Muslims there. The Hamas fighters killed him and then started shooting and throwing hand grenades into the shelter. One man threw many of the grenades back, but not enough. That’s how the boy from Berkeley lost his arm before being dragged off… to die? To be held for 5 years like Gilad Shalit?  

Hamas is now using their captives’ phones to access their social media accounts and torment family members. 

This is categorically different from a military campaign aimed at military targets. Of course it’s terrible that Hamas plants those targets in civilian areas and the harm done to innocents is awful. But they are not the same and yet your note suggests that they are of a piece, combining them into the same sentences.  

If/when Israeli soldiers go into Gaza, they aren’t going to rape anyone. They aren’t going to behead babies. If any soldier did do that, they’d be court martialed like the soldiers of our own military would be.  

In sum, I think your message arrived too late and rested on an equivalency that simply isn’t there. At a time when your Jewish constituents needed to hear words of comfort, your note had quite the opposite effect.