Letters: Where are the voices of outrage at what's happening in Gaza?

Chicago Tribune

a day ago

The massacre of the people of Gaza continues unabated. After blocking food and aid into Gaza for three months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally allowed in a limited amount of food. However, the plan and means of distribution have proved deadly.
I read about people being shot by the Israeli military as they arrive at the food distribution sites set up to deliver food aid. The United States supports Israel's plan for food distribution, which requires many of the starving people to walk miles to one of only four distribution sites in Gaza. The cruelty is unimaginable.
Where are the voices of outrage at this inhumanity? I would like to hear our U.S. senators, Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, our U.S. representatives and our religious leaders — Christian, Jewish and Muslim — speak out against killing and starving the people of Gaza and demand an immediate ceasefire, provision of food in a safe manner and negotiation of a peace agreement to end the killing and prompt the release of the people held hostage.
Netanyahu's plan in Gaza is obviously not working. Who will speak out?I cannot entirely agree with Ald. Brendan Reilly on his op-ed 'You can't separate anti-Zionism from antisemitism. Stop pretending you can' (June 12). While the call 'Free Palestine' is divisive and demonstrators should understand it is counterproductive, the bigger issue is what is happening in Gaza and the indiscriminate violence that results.
The burning of Jewish demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado; the killing of Israeli Embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgram in Washington, and the murder of 6-year-old Palestinian boy Wadea Al-Fayoume in Plainfield Township are equally tragic and pointless. All were committed in the aftermath of the horrific kidnappings by Hamas and Israel's brutal response.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, fending off a trial on corruption charges and an election he may lose, has prioritized his own political goals over the release of the hostages and an end to the carnage. Doctors in Gaza perform surgery without anesthesia on children screaming in pain; unarmed civilians are getting shot merely trying to get food; and an entire displaced population is starving without the most basic necessities in a land of rubble.
Israel's former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, accuses Netanyahu of actions that not only amount to war crimes but that also do not serve Israel's interests. Gaza is 'worse than hell on earth,' according to Mirjana Spoljaric, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Spoljaric said that 'humanity is failing' as we watch these horrors. Yet the U.S. is blindly aiding and abetting these actions.
Much of the population of Gaza was not old enough to vote or was even born when Hamas was voted into power. They should not bear the brunt of this hell.
To calm the anguish that precipitates the kind of violence Reilly condemns, we should all urge our government to pressure Israel to stop this slaughter, return to the negotiating table and get the remaining hostages back.I was very disturbed to read the headline and subheadline on the front page of the Sunday paper concerning the Hope Clinic, 'New clinic in Chicago offers late abortions: Hope provides service to women up to about 34 weeks of pregnancy.'
That text leads one to believe a woman can just walk into the clinic at any point of her pregnancy up to 34 weeks and get an abortion, which is patently false.
It's not until the fourth paragraph (and a turn to Page 6) that the story reveals that abortions, in compliance with Illinois law, are only available to the point of viability (starting about 24 weeks), after which they are available only .
It's not until a second jump to the next page that the story mentions that cases beyond the second trimester are incredibly rare, with only 1% of abortions performed after 21 weeks. Most of those are due to dire medical situations.
In this era of short attention spans, headlines like this one are completely irresponsible. I understand that reporters don't write their own headlines, typically. However, it is an instantly shocking and provocative headline. Now, the Tribune has quite possibly put the clinic in the crosshairs of more anti-abortion rights organizations and possibly put at risk one of the few places where women can get desperately needed reproductive health care.
In the future, I hope the Tribune will put more effort into its headlines to ensure its readers quickly grasp essential main points of an article, particularly when women's health care is at stake.I do not consider 'Hope' to be the best name for the new Uptown abortion provider. My observation tells me it is hope for the human being in the womb. It is also a false hope for the mother. I am also disappointed that the front page would carry such appalling news. I suppose for those who agree with abortion access, it is welcome news. Yet, that is short-sighted.
There are life-affirming options before a woman conceives. There are agencies that teach those options. Even in the case of rape, brave women have given birth to a child whose fault the conception was not.
I fight each day to help men respect women and the reproductive process. I fight each day to master my own base instincts, and I try to teach other males to do the same.
Will I condemn women who use that clinic's services? No, I won't. I pray for the woman and the child. I monetarily support alternative help for women and those children. I help healing and forgiveness programs for women who have had abortions. I will try with all my might and ask heaven's might to make a world where abortion disappears.I'm a medical student in my final year of training, and for countless Saturdays over the past three years, I have volunteered at — and eventually led — a student-run free clinic in one of the most culturally rich corners of Chicago. I'm writing this from our clinic's work room while bantering with our Nepali clinic manager, who lived in Syracuse for a few years and is hinting that I should apply there for residency, and it has hit me just how special our setup here in the Rogers Park neighborhood really is.
Looking around the clinic, it feels like I've stepped onto a spinning globe. Our physician, a Syrian and a decadelong volunteer, chats easily with a patient in Arabic. When our phlebotomist with the Portuguese last name passes by, he pauses to ask how her grandchildren are. When our clinic manager realizes he forgot to bring a patient their medication, he presses a tired hand to his forehead and hurries off, bag in hand. I glance at our pharmacist, a tall Black woman who always catches any student who forgets to order medications, and we laugh and laugh. At the front desk, our interpreters for Hindi, Gujarati and Urdu greet me as I hurry past. Our student volunteers are a linguistic rainbow: Korean, Malayalam and Polish.
Then there's me: Chinese and serving as our clinic's go-to Spanish interpreter.
And we all eat the same clinic-provided American pizza for lunch.
Our patients speak all these languages and occasionally surprise us with more, such as French or Bangla. Every Saturday, students lead appointments and create care plans, working with physicians to teach patients what all their pill bottles mean and how to take care of themselves. Most of our patients are uninsured or underinsured.
For many, it's their first time learning the difference between hemoglobin A1C and just hemoglobin. Similarly, for our students, it may be their first — and maybe only — time ever treating patients from such diverse backgrounds. Just as our patients learn to build new habits, our students are building the ability to care across cultures, languages and lived experiences.
It's not perfect. Sometimes, we scramble to find interpreters, and sometimes, the waiting room fills, then keeps filling. But every week, the world comes together, and our future doctors learn how to care for anyone, anywhere.
In a moment when difference is treated as a threat, this clinic reminds me that it's actually exactly what makes us better.