Editor,

RE: "Israel Premier makes historic visit to Rwanda, pledges stronger ties” (The New Times, July 7).

It is far more than sharing a history of a people targeted for extermination.

From bitter experience, Jews and Rwandans understand better than no one else that, as a people, their existence can be snuffed out without anyone else in the world lifting their littlest finger in their defense beyond empty hand-wringing, if even that. Which is why both leaders emphasized the fact they will never outsource responsibility for their people’s security.

Mwene Kalinda