Readers criticize Westchester BDS vote

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Westchester legislators wrong on BDS vote

Re “Westchester lawmakers right to condemn BDS,” June 26 letter:

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, known as BDS, stands on the right side of history in its fight against the 70-year illegal occupation of Palestine.

The Westchester County Board of Legislators showed cowardice in its condemnation of the BDS movement. Legislator Alfreda Williams of Elmsford displayed extraordinary courage in her opposition to the attack on the BDS movement. The Board of Legislators is just as wrong as Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who tweeted last year: “If you boycott Israel, New York will boycott you.”

It is appropriate that this is the 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration that sanctioned and justified the illegal occupation of Palestine and displaced millions of Sunni Palestinians who had been living there for more than a century under the Ottoman Empire. This systemic human rights crime by the white Western world, namely Britain, the U.S. and Russia, used money and military force to authorize the British mandate on Palestine in 1923 and its partitioning in 1947.

We should be reminded that the establishment of Israel was an illegal act based upon the 1947 U.N. Charter that specified that land could not be assigned without the consent of the majority of the population. That was never authorized by the Palestinians.

Clifford Jackson

Larchmont

We are seeing a more realistic view of the Mideast

Re “Westchester lawmakers right to condemn BDS,” June 26 letter:

Like the BDS vote, this is more propaganda to compensate for the Israeli government’s actions. The repeated claim is that the wars of 1948, 1967 and 1973 were to push the Jews into the sea, when in 1948, it was Palestinians from Jaffa who were driven by the advancing Israeli army into the Mediterranean Sea and fled in open boats. Israelis overran 70 percent of Palestine while holding legal title to less than 10 percent of the country.

Readers criticize Westchester BDS vote

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