The headline of Alan Stein's op-ed, “Moral people must stand with Israel,” (Nov. 8), is incomplete. It needs to read, "Moral people must stand with Israel to end the occupation."

As was the case in South Africa in the 1980s, when many white South Africans of conscience sought to end Apartheid by encouraging boycott and divestment, many Israelis support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to the same end in the West Bank and Occupied Territories of Israel/Palestine.

Earlier this fall Rabbi Arik Ascherman, co-founder of Rabbis for Human Rights, was attacked by a masked Settler with a knife near Nablus where he was helping Palestinian farmers bring in their olive harvest. Such attacks have become common. Rabbi Ascherman, whom I have met and admire greatly, was not injured. He put himself in harm's way to dramatize the injustice of the ongoing occupation, which has continued in the West Bank since 1967. The website of B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, tells the truth about the occupation, as do the Tree of Life Conferences at the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, where Israelis and Palestinians have gathered alongside persons of good will in this country to get out the message: Moral people must stand with Israel to end the occupation!

Rev. Bruce M. Shipman

Groton