To the editors:

It was with great dismay that I opened The Crimson this morning to read Adbelnasser A. Rashid’s op-ed “Defending the Indefensible.” It is not that I find his opinions to be without merit, but rather that I found his expression of them as hyperbolic and needlessly demagogic as the ones against which he argues.

Having been raised in a Reform Jewish household, I grew up with a sense of personal connection to the state of Israel. As a young adult, I was troubled by various policies and practices of the Israeli government that came to my attention, such as those to which Mr. Rashid referred, yet constantly aware of the innocent Israeli lives lost through terrorist actions. I realized that this issue, like most, cannot be viewed as black and white.

In the popular imagination, there seem to be only two ways of viewing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One—that which Mr. Rashid espouses in his article—portrays Israel as an oppressive force that brutally persecutes the Palestinian people. The other, the one I was raised with, describes Israel as a peaceful place constantly under attack by terrorist groups dedicated to its utter annihilation. However, as a rational person, I can understand that neither of these discourses accurately describes the situation. Yet one-sided voices like Mr. Rashid’s (and certainly a plethora of others that are ideologically opposed, yet equally uncompromising) do nothing to help solve the conflict, and instead serve to embitter and further polarize people—as evidenced by inflammatory comments from readers on both sides of the issue posted on the Crimson’s online version of the story—over what is possibly the most pressing issue of our time.

Samuel L. Linden ’10 is a senior music concentrator in Eliot House.