BRATTLEBORO-Why is it so difficult to grasp that support for innocent people suffering in Palestine does not equate to support of Hamas, nor does criticism of the Netanyahu government equate to antisemitism?
The right wing in both Israel and the U.S. have exploited with great success our apparent inability to make these distinctions. Now the Trump administration is using this lack of critical thinking to suppress free speech and promote fear, by threatening and deporting students who have exercised what they rightly believed to be the most basic of rights in this country.
Make no mistake: Trump is warning all of us that no opposition to any of his policies will go unpunished.
Speaking out against this repression will require increasing levels of courage, but the consequences of capitulation are unthinkable.
Karen Tyler
Brattleboro
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