Senator Rubio, I have a strong suspicion that you’re going to be the Republican nominee, and while, given the extreme and fundamentalist turn the GOP has taken, I didn’t expect to be swayed to vote for you or your colleagues, I try to keep an open mind and listen to all sides. This piece shows me one of two possible things, or maybe both:

One possibility is that you have a complete lack of understanding of the situation in the Middle East today because you fail to reference things such as the fact that the PLO, the sole representative body for the Palestinian people, recognized Israel’s right to exist in 1988, but have as of yet gotten no similar recognition from Israel, and the fact that the United States’ tacit approval of the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, which you don’t mention once in this piece, is a grievance you’ll hear about constantly when you ask people, especially in the Middle East, but also around the world, why they’ve lost respect for our country. The attempts of the Obama administration, even if they were half-hearted, to make some small progress on this issue, have lifted us up in the eyes of many people in the region.

The alternative is that you do know these things, but you’re lying to score political points with people who haven’t had the opportunity to educate themselves, like you have, on these issues.

Either way, despite my disagreements with you, I had hoped to see you as a relative voice of reason among a group of racists and religious fundamentalists, but this piece has convinced me that you are not fit to represent the United States in any federal office, especially the Presidency.