Boycott these too

Re “A Different Valor” (by Henry Chu, Dec. 7): I hope the “200 photographers, painters and poets” who urged their fellow artists to boycott Israel because “the world must speak out against Israeli war crimes and atrocities” took the trouble to include in their Internet petition the following countries too: Algeria, Argentina, Angola, Azerbaijan, Burma, Colombia, China, Chile, Croatia, Egypt, Eritrea, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Indonesia, Iran, India, Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Liberia, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Nepal/Bhutan, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, to name a few. Human Rights Watch 2003 cites these and many others who daily violate the rights of their citizens, prisoners of war and refugees based on gender, religion, political opposition or sexual orientation.

Israel is trying to protect its innocent civilians from being blown up by a murderous enemy. They are building a wall to stop murderers from entering, not to prevent innocent civilians from leaving.

I am sure that, because those artists are so offended by Israel’s policies, they must be positively outraged at the unprovoked and cruel war crimes and atrocities occurring in the above and many other countries every single day .

Pauline Regev

Santa Monica