The Jewish Light does a grave disservice to its readers by publishing editorials like that of Moshe Phillips on January 3.

The editorial claims that “The war in Gaza resembles a police operation . . . security forces are going house to house, hunting down killers.” What kind of police operation with “security forces going house to house” damages or destroys two thirds of all buildings in the place it is conducted? Do police operations create millions of refugees living in tents that get bombed, where babies die of hypothermia during cold winter rainstorms? Do police operations destroy people’s homes, hospitals, churches, mosques, water treatment plants, farms and greenhouses, bakeries, universities, primary and secondary schools – leaving people hungry, without clean water and suffering from preventable diseases? What kind of police operation involves that mass killing of women and children, journalists and doctors, and sexual assaults on detainees? What the Israeli military is doing in Gaza doesn’t resemble a police operation.

The editorial doesn’t mention the immense suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, nor the suffering of Israeli hostages nor any plan for bringing them to freedom and safety. It advocates that the Israeli military destroys Hamas by continuing its present campaign but it doesn’t present any evidence that the present campaign is destroying Hamas – whose ranks are growing. This editorial claims to respond to an actually informative editorial by Jill Jacobs (without addressing any of the substance of what Jacobs wrote). Why publish the response and not the original?