We in Maine and the United States should feel nothing but shame for what our government is doing to the people of Gaza. As a Jew with family living in Israel, I am ashamed of both my country and the government and military of Israel for what it is doing to Palestinians.

The U.S. government — both the Biden and Trump administrations — has sent weapons and billions of our tax dollars in financial aid to an Israeli government and military that is slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinians and starving the over 2 million Gazans who remain alive.

While the numbers are not yet as large, the mass murder (genocide) of Palestinians is just as horrible and cruel as the genocide of millions of Jews, LGBTQIA people, Roma, Poles and others by the Nazis during World War II. To make matters worse, the U.S. president is suggesting that all Palestinians be removed from their traditional lands in Gaza, which is ethnic cleansing.

The “excuse” for this mass murder is preventing “antisemitism,” but Palestinians are Semites and speak a Semitic language, Arabic. Gazans are the victims of antisemitism, being killed just because they are Palestinian. The government of Israel is not a religion; it is the cause of antisemitism, not the victim of it.

People in Maine should speak out against this travesty.

Larry Dansinger
Bangor