Readers Write: The Middle East, the death penalty, the justice system, ‘Jane Eyre’

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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I share Rabbi Avi S. Olitzky’s discomfort at being a Jew in Minnesota, but for different reasons (“When a yarmulke feels like a target: Navigating Jewish life in a fractured world,” Strib Voices, Sept. 28).

Israel suffered, as he wrote, “a massive terror attack” on Oct. 7. Its actions after that show that a “massive terror attack” can also be committed by Jews.

He and “dozens of other local rabbis” wrote that “Hamas has immorally chosen to embed” its military operations among civilians, “using non-combatant Palestinians as human-shields. Thus attacks on these military targets result in the tragic loss of Palestinian lives and infrastructure.”

Not just Palestinian lives, it seems.

While Israel’s prime minister was at the United Nations, the Israeli military leveled six high-rise apartment towers in Beirut, Lebanon. The “resulting explosion leveled an area greater than a city block,” the Associated Press reported. Why? The Israeli Defense Forces targeted the leader of Hezbollah, a Lebanese political party that seeks to defend its country against military attack, and whose underground headquarters was “shielded” by all those civilian apartment dwellers.

The AP reported, “The Israeli army has in its arsenal 2,000-pound American-made ‘bunker buster’ guided bombs designed specifically for hitting subterranean targets.”

I have not experienced much antisemitism in my life that I recognized. Perhaps I’m naive and unperceptive.

I do feel shame that a country whose leaders share my heritage show no hesitation to kill others in, at last count, a 41-to-1 ratio since that brazen Hamas attack almost a year ago.

And I don’t want my tax dollars to provide the ammunition for such vengeful destruction.

Hal Davis, Minneapolis

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I am a loyal subscriber to the Star Tribune and am generally happy with its news coverage. I was disappointed, however, with the representation of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in the Sept. 26 edition. I realize that the article I am referring to — “Israel braces for new ground war” — was an Associated Press piece with accompanying photographs and not original to the Star Tribune. That said, it was on the front page of my hometown newspaper above the fold, and I find in inexcusable that both of the accompanying images featured alongside the text only reflected damage inflicted on sites in Israel with no images reflecting the destruction of Lebanon, which has sustained significantly more damage and loss of life in this conflict. With in-laws sending us videos and images of missile strikes right outside their home in southern Lebanon, I am sure that images from Lebanon similar to those published reflecting the damage in Israel would have been easy enough to come by.

Images are powerful. Indeed, Nora Ephron claimed that photojournalism, with its ability to disturb, is “often more powerful than written journalism.” This oversight reflects not only a simple lack of equality in representing the current conflict between these two Middle East neighbors but a significant failure in equitable representation. As of the day I write this, Sept. 27, more than 700 Lebanese have lost their lives in the current rise in hostilities. There is simply no comparison to be had concerning which side in this conflict has experienced the most destruction to date. I believe our news coverage — including published images — should reflect this reality.

Emma Rifai, Hopkins

Comparing an American politician to Adolf Hitler is not an ignorant accusation or simplistic labeling (“Everyone tone it down,” Readers Write, Sept. 26). As a high school senior in the late 1970s, I wrote my American history paper based on interviews from a few European immigrants who had lived through World War II. The most notable impression was the remark by the wife in a German immigrant couple about how popular Hitler was when first elected. Every politician can be compared to the Adolf Hitler that was democratically elected before he became a dictator.

Current variants of “[Opposing candidate] is bad for America” language are nothing new. Voters have heard it for decades. What’s different about the Republican presidential nominee is the frequent blame-this-demographic, denigrate-that-ethnicity language. That is a lot closer to the kind of rhetoric a would-be despot uses when trying to exploit democracy as a path to autocratic rule.

Luke Walbert, St. Paul

The Sept. 28 column by Phil Morris, “Long past time to end the death penalty,” outlines the multiple reasons why the death penalty should be abolished in the United States. He is correct in calling on President Joe Biden to take executive action regarding capital punishment at the federal level. Morris also notes that public attitudes regarding state-sanctioned execution have shifted and far fewer citizens are supportive. While public opinions are important there are far greater issues to consider.

The concept of the death penalty is unacceptable at every level. It is not an effective deterrent. It is applied unequally across race and class lines. Innocent people are killed. And, most important, capital punishment is morally bankrupt.

Vengeance is the disposition that drives support for the death penalty. When citizens accept state-sanctioned murder as the resolution of humanity’s primary principle — life or death — we become equivalent to the perpetrator of the crime we seek to avenge. Those who commit serious crimes must be punished. Capital punishment, however, is intentional societal barbarism.

Most countries have rejected the death penalty. The remaining countries often are authoritarian regimes that brutalize their citizens. Minnesota banned the practice in 1911 yet a majority of states still support the practice. And in some states the regularity and seeming enthusiasm for executions is horrific.

When considering important societal issues I invariably refer to our foundational documents. The human rights and civil liberties embedded in the Constitution, Bill of Rights and innumerable other guiding documents provide the moral and legal foundation for rejecting the death penalty.

Phil George, Lakeville

Monday’s story on the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office’s compliance with its Brady obligations gets the emphasis backward (“More records sought on police,” front page).

A proper lede would say, “The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office is finally complying with a constitutional mandate it has systematically ignored for decades.” Instead, it suggests that the HCAO is doing something improper (“flooding courts,” “the troopers weren’t going on trial,” “same motion nearly 600 times,” “a new tactic”).

Brady, Giglio and the Minnesota cases applying those U.S. Supreme Court decisions impose an affirmative duty on prosecutors to seek out and to disclose any potentially favorable evidence held by others, including police, acting on the government’s behalf.

In spite of this duty to disclose, the HCAO under former County Attorney Mike Freeman hired a former judge (Dan Mabley) to oversee their Brady compliance who openly admitted that the county did not “have a Brady list,” such a list being standard practice nationwide to ensure that the county can easily and properly disclose what the Constitution and courts require them to disclose.

That duty is particularly compelling when the subject of these Brady motions, the Minneapolis Police Department, is under both state and federal consent decrees (or their equivalent) for departmentwide “patterns and practices” of lying and violating the Constitution.

Today’s story is akin to an investigative report saying that new hospital administrators are requiring surgeons to wash their hands every time they operate!

Barry S. Edwards, Minneapolis

The writer is a criminal justice attorney.

Eva Lockhart says that she would never teach “Jane Eyre” or “Pride and Prejudice” to 16-year-olds (”Kids can still get hooked on the classics,” Strib Voices, Sept. 27). I read “Jane Eyre” in sixth grade (at age 11). That story of the unloved, unwanted, bullied little girl who was far from beautiful resonated more with me than anything else I had ever read. Sixty years later it is still the book I love the best. “Not a universal text”? “Particular to a limited audience”? I don’t agree.

Elaine Murray, Minneapolis