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Regarding the article "Socialist group amends words on Hamas" (Oct. 13): I'm finally able to formulate what's been confusing and bothering me this election cycle: Why is the DFL endorsing Democratic Socialists of America candidates? I'm a registered Democrat and have in the past relied on DFL endorsements. Given the DFL endorsements of DSA candidates for the Minneapolis City Council, I now have to dig deeper to find candidates who align with my beliefs and priorities (and what I understood the party's beliefs and priorities to be).

Which brings me to another question. When are we going to move to primaries instead of caucuses? Who goes to the caucuses? And a better question, who does not? Would our candidates reflect communities better if we opened up the process to everyone in a primary, rather than the few who can attend a caucus and convention, given restraints of transportation, tech, time and money? Is this why the DFL endorsed DSA candidates, because of who was able to attend the convention?

Sybil Axner, Minneapolis

There is no excuse.

Just when we thought our hearts would not have the capacity for more grief and anger, reading the comments on the atrocities committed in southern Israel last weekend only exacerbates our pain.

Bob Goonin in "Israeli injustice, U.S. backing yield unending bloodshed" (Opinion Exchange, Oct. 12) opens his piece by identifying himself as a "post-Holocaust Jew," which I find both ironic and appalling as the daughter of parents who fled Germany and Austria to escape the Holocaust.

Goonin neglects to acknowledge that last weekend's brutal massacre resulted in a grim statistic that saw the most Jews killed in a single day since the Nazi Holocaust. The piece is filled with inaccuracies.

Here is something that we do know. Hamas invaded towns and villages in southern Israel, slaughtering, torturing and kidnapping civilians of many nationalities — babies, children, women, men, elderly Holocaust survivors, people with disabilities, concertgoers and entire families. In planned attacks, they raped women and savagely killed over 1,300 people.

How do I know this? The terrorist organization whose charter calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and the murder of Jews proudly shared photos and videos of its barbarism.

No injustice can justify this coldblooded barbarity.

Marilyn Levi-Baumgarten, Minneapolis

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Hamas had a master plan to brutally murder and cause undue pain to Israel. But what did it really accomplish? Over 1,300 people are dead with many more injured or taken hostage in Israel, plus those killed or injured in Gaza. Hamas got its temporary victory and paraded its captives through the streets. Big deal! Now the whole Gaza Strip is blocked from food, water and electricity, and its citizens are under siege 24 hours a day.

Hamas could have used all the money it's been given by Qatar, Iran and other countries to invest in its people and infrastructure. Instead, its goal is to destroy Israel. Maybe this all could have been avoided had its leaders followed a different path.

Casey Zimmerman, Plymouth

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The attacks by Hamas were horrific, all right, but certainly not shocking. With complete military superiority, Israel has treated the Palestinians very much like the Europeans treated Native Americans. The Europeans took their land, gave them blankets infected with smallpox, killed the bison, made and broke endless treaties, slaughtered men, women and children — and then were shocked and outraged any time a white settler got scalped.

Desperate people will break out when they have nothing to lose. Amid the tsunami of cant and hypocrisy coming from American politicians, please remember this: Israel, like Hamas, does not have clean hands.

Jeff Ekegren, Elk River

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We are living in complex times. Everyone's lives have changed since hearing the news of Hamas' terror attacks on Israel starting last Saturday. As parents, we have additional concerns about how our children will be supported in school. In response to parents reaching out to school districts for support, superintendents, principals, school board presidents and teachers have responded with messages of support. Some schools' letters (Wayzata and Edina are examples) have called out the events as what they are — terrorist attacks on innocent civilians — but many schools' letters are not correctly labeling the events that are currently occurring.

As Jewish people living in Minnesota, we feel supported by our local and national government. We have all seen and heard the poignant words from President Joe Biden, Gov. Tim Walz, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and many others in the U.S. government as they have clearly stated that this was a terrorist attack by Hamas, a terrorist organization, against our ally Israel and its civilians. We are wondering why schools are not also condemning the terrorist attack. We question whether the schools and teachers are perpetuating misinformation, making it very challenging for our students to stand up. Current events should be taught; there was a terrorist attack by Hamas, whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews and annihilate Israel. If students have questions about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that is another issue that also needs to be addressed. Words matter and the words used to teach and lead about this current event should be accurate.

Thank you, government leaders, for standing up for humanity. School districts, please follow their lead. Words matter.

Judi Shink, Sandy Sondell and Meira Besikof, Wayzata

It appears that numerous Hennepin County residents, including at least one judge, are fed up with Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty's lenient plea deals for serious offenders. (See the article "Crime victims, families protest" regarding the rally that was held at the Government Center and the article "Carjacker's plea deal is rejected by judge" regarding Judge Paul Scoggin's rejection of the plea deal for defendant Dorian Flowers.) Although Moriarty's not totally wrong in her assertion that incarceration at times isn't beneficial for offenders, particularly juveniles, she appears to be trying to change the entire criminal justice system single-handedly. Her belief that the brain isn't fully developed until the mid-20s apparently drives her decisionmaking. Even if that were true for everyone, it doesn't preclude the fact that most adults and youth, even small children, know right from wrong. It's also true that limits, appropriate boundaries and consequences are helpful in responding to negative behavior in order to address the wrong and to keep it from occurring in the future.

When making her decisions, does Moriarty take into account the recommendations of others in the system — her own staff, psychologists who can provide information about emotional development and propensity to reoffend, probation officers who may know the offenders better than anyone through prior supervision or through the completion of a presentence report, family members who are often pleading for help or victims who feel revictimized by a lenient sentence?

There's no doubt that the entire criminal justice system must newly invest in a multitude of responses to crime and offenders, including restorative justice, community work programs, outpatient and inpatient treatment options as well as correctional facilities for juveniles and additional rehabilitative programs in jails and prisons. There is, however, no excuse or credible rationale for continuing to return serious and violent offenders who have shown through their behavior or prior criminal history they cannot or will not live successfully in the community.

Jeanne Torma, Minneapolis