I'm writing in response to the recent article in the Gazette reporting on the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts’ opposition to local city councils voting on resolutions in support of a cease-fire. We have a right if not a duty to ask our elected city officials to relay to Congress and President Joe Biden our feelings about a federal foreign policy of helping Israel's invasion of Gaza with U.S. paid-for weapons. The U.S. literally has been complicit in the murder of tens of thousands of innocent Gazans, and the starvation and displacement of many tens of thousands more. I watch this agony unfold day after day, and my waking nightmares tell me that anyone who believes that "a cease-fire at this juncture would only serve to prolong the suffering of Palestinians,” has lost their mind … if not their soul. 

Deb Friedman

Easthampton