Letters to the Editor: Latinos have Jewish allies in the fight for a Gaza cease-fire

Los Angeles Times Opinion
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Activists rally outside El Monte City Hall on Tuesday, April 2 before the El Monte city Council meeting. The council unanimously passed a resolution asking for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, becoming the seventh Latino majority city in Southern California to do so.
Activists in the Latino-majority city of El Monte rally in support of a Gaza cease-fire outside City Hall on April 2. (Gustavo Arellano / Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: It is distressing that columnist Gustavo Arellano equates the entire Jewish community with the right-wing lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and therefore claims there is a schism between the Jewish community and Latinos, many of whom oppose Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.

Many Jews throughout the United States, and certainly in Los Angeles, are working tirelessly to end the genocide and allow Palestine to, at long last, be free.

Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now are two organizations that are actively working to oppose the narrative that AIPAC wishes politicians to believe — that if they dare to oppose the current right-wing government of Israel, they don't support the Jewish community.

The Times should report more on the Jewish activists who are appalled by what is being done, allegedly in our name. We are, of course, part of the Jewish community and share the sense of horror that the Latino activists in the article feel.

Leslie Simon and Marc Bender, Woodland Hills

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To the editor: In his column on why Latinos want a Gaza cease-fire, Arellano mentions that many of the Palestinians killed have been "women and children."

However, when he cites statistics about Israelis killed in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, he fails to mention that many of those who were brutally kidnapped and murdered were also women and children.

Why omit that information when discussing Israelis, but mention women and children when discussing Palestinian victims?

Danielle Samulon, Pacific Palisades

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.