Just what is the ‘price of victory’ in Gaza?

Gaza. What is the price of victory, of justice, for Oct. 11? How many Palestinians are required to die in Gaza to even the score? 50,000 75,000, all? When is enough enough?

Maybe it is no longer about reprisal and revenge. Maybe it is more about seizing land and territory with goal to expand Israeli settlements. Maybe it is to take all of Gaza and make it part of Israel. I am sure they will find a willing partner in Trump, who wanted to turn Gaza into a Palestinian-free Riviera, Just toss those pesky Gazans out without caring where they go so that Palestine can be a beautiful coastal Jewish state. Watch for Trump hotels to rise from the rubble.

No matter, Israel may get more settlements but they will have created and continue to create a new generation of enraged people. Peace is not achieved by pulverizing a people.

— Christine DeLapp, Aptos

Recognizing state of Israel a step toward peace

The Turkish province of Syria (with Arab and Jewish populations) was partitioned by the League of Nations in the 1923 creating three Arab states and one (Palestine), which admitted Jewish migrants. Jewish migration to the Arab states was prohibited. In 1947 the United Nations partitioned Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

In the war that followed Arab states occupied and annexed Arab Palestine. Arabs were expelled from Jewish Palestine. Jews were expelled from Arab Palestine, and from the Arab states.

In 1967 Egypt declared the “objective is to destroy Israel.” In the war that followed Israel occupied Arab Palestine and Egypt east of Suez. Negotiations to withdraw from Egypt were successful. Negotiations to withdraw from the occupied territories were not.

Recognition of Israel within the pre-1967 borders by organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah would go a long way to securing peace. But continuing with the objective of destroying Israel is a recipe for more of what we’ve seen — war and terrorism.

— Mik Moore, Santa Cruz

Rail costs ‘preposterous,’ not a ‘legacy project’

FORT Chair Matt Farrell’s Guest Commentary (April 9) isn’t worth the cost — it’s like the train project.

The public must also remember this is the same group that violated FPPC campaign contribution rules in 2021, and the same person who wrote a commentary to recall a supervisor unless he voted to approve the RTC trail funding in 2024.

Persuading the public that an estimated $1 billion rail/trail cost-overrun project is a justifiable legacy project for future generations is preposterous. It is a boondoggle for Caltrans as the RTC’s Measure D funds run out; engineering reinforcement and/or replacement of bridges are costly; seismic safety concerns and habitat to beach-town community are destroyed.

For example, Measure Q’s recent passage was to protect and restore habitats, not to pave, remove vegetation and/or cement over habitats — but Caltrans and the RTC continue to pave away from Natural Bridges to Davenport.

As citizens, we do not have the personal income to support these advocacy groups’ pipe dreams while learning more about the RTC’s impacts upon our communities.

— Jeff Staben, Soquel

What kind of government does these things?

What kind of government, despite acknowledging in court that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was denied due process in his arrest and mistaken rendition to El Salvador, feigns helplessness in enforcing a court order for his return? The same one that, as Trump and his crowd laughingly muse, would send U.S. citizen prisoners and other “homegrowns” to El Salvadoran mega prisons? Why do surrogates, like Stephen Miller, consistently dehumanize individuals — those targeted by Trump — with labels such as “criminal” and “terrorist”?

Recall the tactics of the Nazi regime, which systematically demonized Jewish people as “vermin,” “rats” and “criminals,” stripping them of their humanity and legal rights. The pattern is clear: disregard legal processes, impose executive will and cultivate unchecked state power. All while the Republican Congress sleeps.

— Doug Urbanus, Ben Lomond

A billion for bridges, or for Watsonville hospital?

Is spending $1 billion for train bridges more beneficial than spending $1 billion on Watsonville Community Hospital?

— Bill Stoesen, Santa Cruz