I wanted to express my gratitude to The Durango Herald for the editorial board’s thoughtful editorial, “Our view: Silencing Gaza’s journalists silences the world,” (Herald. Aug. 31), for speaking up for the journalists and people of Gaza, and for calling on our elected (miss) representatives to end military funding to Israel and to call for a ceasefire and humanitarian access.
Thank you as well for noting our upcoming second annual Poetry for Palestine fundraiser event, taking place on Saturday, Sept. 13, from 5-8 p.m., at Bread Café (135 E. Eighth St.). The event will feature poetry and open mic, local and Palestinian art, light appetizers, beverages, door prizes and a silent auction. Proceeds benefit five Palestinian families surviving in and/or displaced from Gaza. The Durango Palestine Solidarity Coalition also rallies and marches for Gaza every Sunday starting at 4 p.m. at Buckley Park.
Alas, although numerous Israeli Jewish Holocaust and genocide scholars have previously called Israel’s siege on Gaza what it is, that is one step the Herald’s editorial staff has, as of yet, been unwilling to take. Perhaps now that the world’s leading genocide scholars’ association, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, has named it a genocide (see http://bit.ly/3V8D7fZ), our illustrious editors will see fit to reconsider.
It is also regrettable that, when offered the opportunity to register their dissent in the annals of history with a nonbinding resolution, Durango City Council instead chose to silence community members by changing public comment rules in a likely unconstitutional move. History will remember.
Nathan Coe
Durango
