By Akiva Kenny Segan, , Seattle
If it weren’t an Orwell-worthy twist of language interpretation, re: letter writer N. Goldberg’s claim that I am “not about free speech” after I’ve written in defense of JTNews editors for publishing letters with diverse opinions regarding Israel and the Palestinians, it would be funny. (“Taking up too much space,” Sept. 16) Yet Mr. Goldberg and others who’ve bitterly attacked me in these pages by urging the editors to cease publishing letters by me and anyone they consider “pro-Palestinian” and “anti-Israel” (as if the two were mutually exclusive!) are those who seek to be sole judges of whose opinions are “pro-Israel” and acceptable.
Equally perverse is Goldberg’s racist tone against Palestinians by declaring I’m “pro-Palestinian,” as if being pro-Palestinian were Nazism, Communism or like being a flesh-eating zombie from Gehenna.
As a Jew who loves Israel and Judaism, I’ll wear Mr. Goldberg’s pro-Palestinian label proudly. It makes a nice fit with the time my name appeared in a list of “self-hating American Jews” in a Kach/Kahane website eight years ago. I don’t read the Palestinian press. I read Jewish press, religiously. Mr. Goldberg might try it.