Alexander Dolitsky: It’s pretty simple — Hamas must surrender, get out of the tunnels, return hostages

March 21, 2024

By ALEXANDER DOLITSKY

This column is a response to Kirsa Hughes-Skandijs’ letter, “Black-and-white view of Gaza goes too far,” published in the Juneau Empire on March 19.

In her letter, Hughes-Skandijs has questioned why “…groundless accusations that perpetuate his [Dolitsky] black-and-white view should have made it to print,” referring to my column, “Israel-Gaza and historic, religious and ethnic challenges of global terrorism” published on March 4 in the Juneau Empire, which itself was a response to Dixie Belcher’s column published on February 26.

Editor’s note: That Dolitsky column is reprinted here at Must Read Alaska:

Alexander Dolitsky: Setting the record straight on Israel’s history with Palestinians

Why was my article published in Juneau Empire? For the same reason that “groundless and misleading” Hughes-Skandijs’s letter was published in Juneau Empire.

Remember, in America we still live in a democratic society, where citizens of our country exercise freedom of speech and expression, and also exercise check and balances—a system in which the different parts of an organization (e.g., government) have powers that control the other parts, so that no part can become too powerful.

When individuals, including myself, contribute their opinions to newspapers, journals or other forms of media, and their work is accepted for publication, they ultimately become journalists. In fact, truth, accuracy, and objectivity are cornerstones of journalism ethics.

In her letter, Hughes-Skandijs refers to the anti-Semitic and hateful school curriculum in Gaza as a “… scaremongering propaganda.”

She writes: “His [Dolitsky] unsourced claims about bloodthirsty kindergarteners are little more than the kind of scaremongering propaganda we have seen time and again in campaigns of state violence against vulnerable populations.” Frankly, I don’t even understand the meaning of this sentence; just an incoherent mumbling.

In fact, anti-Semitic teaching in Gaza, under censorship of Hamas, from kindergarten on is an indisputable fact. A generation of children in Gaza have been taught to hate from anti-Semitic textbooks (e.g., good read “The roots of Hamas’ terror attack can be found in Gaza’s schools” by Steve Israel, Forward, October 25, 2023).

How can anyone in good conscious negotiate a peaceful agreement or two-state coexistence with a nation committed to this type of hateful ideology?

Hughes-Skandijs made so many false assertions and misinterpretations related to my column that I don’t even know where to start in dismantling it. In her letter, she put words in my mouth, brought Ukraine and Vladimir Putin into her narrative, and made numerous unfounded accusations.

For example, Hughes-Skandijs writes: “After years of banging the drum for Ukrainian lives, Mr. Dolitsky now apparently feels that all wars are disproportionate and that’s just fine and dandy.”

Yes, indeed, all wars are disproportionate; I don’t just feel it, I know it as a historic and factual truth. I wonder, however, what Hughes-Skandijs was thinking when she made this statement and other false assertions in her letter. Do we speak the same language—English? Shall I explain my position, narrative and statements in three other languages—Ukrainian, Russian or Spanish? Keep in mind, misinterpreting or misconstruing your opponent’s language will not make your narrative more persuasive or credible, just an opposite.

Post-war Germany made a great effort to eradicate Nazi ideology in their country, especially in the school curriculum. Today, synagogues and Holocaust Museums are present in the major German cities—Dresden, Berlin, Frankfurt, and others. Germans of the post-war generation are ashamed of their past and they paid the price.

My mother, my relatives and all Soviet citizens that were under occupation in the former Soviet Union during World War II received a reparation from Germany in the amount of about $3,000 each. My father was a soldier and an officer of the Soviet Army during the war from 1939 to 1947. Military personnel did not receive a reparation from Germany; they were not considered under occupation, they fought Nazism in the frontline.

Gazans must apply the German’s model as an example and eradicate their hateful ideology toward Israel and other Jews worldwide. The solution for ending the Gaza-Hamas/Israel war in Gaza is somewhat simple—Hamas must surrender, get out of their tunnels and return the hostages (including eight Americans), those who perished and those who are still alive, to their families. Why do Hamas still fight, endangering their own countrymen in Gaza?

Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and was enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also a lecturer in the Russian Center. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukranian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center (see www.aksrc.homestead.com) from 1990 to present. He has conducted about 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky has been a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, andClipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. He was the Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology, and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka; Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia; Old Russia in Modern America: Russian Old Believers in Alaska; Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During WWII; Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East; Living Wisdom of the Far North: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska; Pipeline to Russia; The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in WWII; and Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers; Ancient Tales of Chukotka, and Ancient Tales of Kamchatka.