To the Editor:

A law currently passing through Parliament in England will from 1^st January 2027 outlaw the purchase of cigarettes and tobacco by anyone then under 18, ever at any time during their lives. It will not be illegal for them to possess or smoke tobacco, only to buy it, meaning that they will always have to get someone older to do their purchasing for them. Of course, as time goes on there will be fewer and fewer people left who can legally do the buying, and eventually no one at all, signalling the end of the trade.

Nothing so drastic is proposed yet over here, but I was a bit surprised when I recently purchased food at a local store in Vermont, I noticed that tobacco cannot be sold to citizens under 21. How is it that we allow young citizens to drive massive cars and trucks at speeds that allow them to kill other innocents (and themselves) at the age of 16, and join the military at 18, but not to choose to purchase tobacco?

Thousands of teenage Americans die across the U.S. each year in car accidents, and I am unsure if even a handful die due to tobacco. It is true that tobacco might kill you later in life, but is that not a lesser evil than dying in a head-on crash at 16? Further, seemingly hypocritically, we allow children who are eight years old to purchase candy bars, soda, and many other chemical-infused addictive products that lead to major health issues and kill millions later in life. We fund this food system through taxation in the public schools.

So why do we allow an eight-year-old to choose products that may one day condemn them to an early grave, but they cannot choose tobacco until 21? And why can an 18-year-old risk his life in battle, but not choose to enjoy tobacco if he wishes?

Perhaps the correct question is to ask why some privileged people are allowed to decide what others can and cannot do. I am sure many who have told others, through laws, that they cannot partake of tobacco, have themselves engaged in dangerous behavior, such as driving or eating processed sugar. It all reminds me of what C.S Lewis once wrote:

“Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.  It may be better to live under robber barons than under the omnipotent moral busybodies.  The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

And by voting, these young 18-year-olds can decide what laws others must obey, meaning they can decide what adults can or cannot do, what taxes they pay, and more. This, we believe, they are mature enough for, but not for deciding whether to smoke tobacco.

-Jeb Smith

To the Editor:

Guy I’m glad to hear you found a  new host for your radio broadcast. She will be staying on after the owner of the station see the improvement in the ratings. It’s not personal you failed professionally.

-Brian Pearl

What Vermont’s anti-Israel protesters don’t want you to know

There are at least 25 Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organizations in the United States, including chapters at the University of Vermont (UVM) and Middlebury College. According to its website, UVM’s SJP chapter states, “In solidarity with this nonviolent movement, we are calling on the University of Vermont to divest from American corporations that are complicit in and profit from Israel’s illegal occupation and colonization of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.”

The rhetoric employed by these organizations has been criticized as factually and historically inaccurate. Some scholars argue that there is no colonization or occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, asserting that these lands have historically belonged to the Jewish people. Critics contend that historical revisionism can obscure factual accuracy by promoting agenda-driven narratives.

Prior to 1948, the territory was commonly referred to as Judea and Samaria, reflecting its historical and ancestral nomenclature. In fact, Palestina was a term invented by the occupying Romans to rid Israel of its Jewish identity, and the Palestinians and their countless supporters are still attempting to do the same.

This devious designation from facts has roots in biblical, classical, and early modern sources. Following the 1948 War, during which the Jordanian army took control of Judea and Samaria, the Hashemite Kingdom introduced the term “West Bank” to describe the area west of the Jordan River. In 1950, Jordan annexed the ancient Jewish territory, and the term “West Bank” became official. Only Iraq and the United Kingdom recognized this annexation. 

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War began when five Arab nations—Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria—invaded Israel one day after its declaration of statehood on May 15, 1948, following a United Nations vote. Israel ultimately prevailed in the conflict. The war resulted in the displacement of thousands of Palestinians, contributing to the ongoing refugee crisis.

However, approximately 800,000 Sephardic Jews who, between 1948 and 1967, were expelled from or fled Arab countries such as Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, are often overlooked in discussions of the Arab-Israeli conflict. For centuries, Jews were intrinsic in the societies of Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Yemen, and other countries, including Persian Iran, but after 1948, they were confronted with systematic persecution, barbarity, sacking, and eviction. This was classic ethnic cleansing as they were identified, selected, and driven from these lands that were their homes for multiple generations. Synagogues were torched, and businesses looted. Entire families were uprooted, and their bank accounts seized, but they found homes in Israel, Europe, and America. Does that sound like Zionist colonization?

There are no comparable organizations advocating for Jewish refugees from Islamic countries. This aspect of the Arab-Israeli conflict is often omitted from mainstream discourse. Pro-Palestine propagandists don’t want you to know about this since this omission contrasts with the prevailing anti-Israel narrative. According to most sources, 700,000 Palestinian refugees were displaced while 850,000 Jewish refugees were supplanted between 1948 and the early seventies. SO why has Jewish history been discounted and the Palestinian refugees become media and public protest darlings? For the same reasons, the Burlington Free Press and Barre Times Argus refuse to run articles and op-eds in any way sympathetic to Israel.

 In 1948, Arab radio broadcasts admonished the Palestinians to leave their homes so their armies would be free to enter the “Zionist Entity” and destroy it. Then the Palestinian Arabs could return. “Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees while it was we who made them leave,” wrote in his published memoirs, Khaled Al-Azm, Syria’s Prime Minister after the 1948 War. “We brought disaster upon Arab refugees by inviting  them to leave and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave. We have rendered them dispossessed. We have participated in lowering their moral and social level. Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon men, women and children-all this in the service of political purposes.”

 Why do Hamas and the Palestinian Authority continue to reject offers of a Palestinian state? At the Camp David Accords in 2000, Arafat said no to the Clinton Administration and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offers of land for peace. According to Dennis Ross, the chief negotiator at the accords, Arafat’s entire life was governed by the conflict. “For him (Arafat) to end the conflict is to end himself,” said Ross. In other words, Arafat would have been unseated and/or assassinated. Ross later revealed that he had briefed Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to America, and encouraged him to persuade Arafat to accept the Clinton proposals. Bandar told Ross, “If Arafat rejects this, it won’t be a mistake; it will be a crime.” 

In his book,  Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism,  best-selling author Mike Evans writes, “Several arguments abound as to why the Palestinian Authority continues to reject any and all offers of a Palestinian State, as did Yasser Arafat in 2000 and as Mahmoud Abbas has continued to do. Formal statehood would limit the ability of the PLO and Hamas to commit acts of terrorism.

“…This was a lesson learned when Gaza achieved pseudo-statehood. It became easier for Israel to retaliate when attacked. For the PA to achieve statehood would be a catastrophic move. It would lose the ‘victim’ status that it has enjoyed for decades and would lose sizeable donations from the US, EU, and Arab backers.”

Finally, according to the July 28th, 2020, Iran News Daily, Hamas rejected $15 Billion Aid for disarming.

The Voice of the Cape (iono.fm) also reported that “Hamas rejects $15 billion in return for disarmament.” This South African report stated that Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh publicly confirmed the movement rejected a $15 billion aid package that included major infrastructure projects such as airports, a seaport, and reconstruction funding. This offer was reportedly considered the U.S.A’s “Deal of the Century.”

There weren’t any anti-Israel protests this spring at UVM and Middlebury College. Perhaps protesting is hurting students’ GPAs, or dorm parties are just more fun.

-Peter Fernandez