Studies reveal the mental health of Americans is deteriorating, and this deterioration is sure to increase as a result of witnessing Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu declare that Gaza will be taken over and the Palestinians will be removed so it can be turned into a world-class beach resort.

Our nation is predicated on the principle of human equality — the Civil War and World War II being fought to defend it — and now we are going to defend its opposite: what Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International call “genocide”? That is sure to make us feel dis-ease.

In our communities there are people who, in principle, stand with Trump and Netanyahu. Let us do what we can to understand the suffering they are feeling as they try to put out of their minds the dis-ease that Trump and Netanyahu spread. For fascism is the opposite of democracy; and to pretend to defend democracy while supporting fascism can lead to madness — as epitomized by Trump and Netanyahu’s new policy of generating tourism through genocide and Elon Musk’s recent “not a Nazi salute.”

Being aware of a central generator of our public mental illness crisis gives us the opportunity to curtail it — and more importantly, to care for those who are sickened by it.

Here in the Happy Valley let us be good neighbors, treating others as we want them to treat us. That is a sure way of increasing everybody’s mental health.

Kurt Heidinger

Westhampton