The correct path
US President-elect Donald Trump is on the correct path with his plan for “school choice”. If successful, he will help save inadequate educational districts in the US, much to the relief of parents forced to send their children to failing public schools, especially in minority areas.
By enacting the program, he will also force teachers unions to rethink injecting their “progressive” designs into local school districts and their automatic support for Democratic candidates in local, state and national elections, no matter their ability to serve in office.
BERNARD SMITHJerusalem
An admirable objective
Enhancing the goal of aliyah is an admirable objective. However, when I prepared for aliyah more than a decade ago, I went to the Jewish Agency office in New York on a regular business day to complete our previously submitted application process. The suite was dark except for two security guards and an office assistant.
The latter kindly agreed to search for our application. She turned on the lights and found piles of similar unreviewed applications on several desks. After a number of minutes, she found ours. A week later, I received the approved application and found that the young lady who assisted me previously had been fired.If aliyah is to be encouraged, the Jewish Agency needs some refurbishing.
GARY STEINMANJerusalem
Potential precedent
"ICC sham" foresees an erosion of the International Criminal Court’s standing and credibility as the arrest warrants it has issued against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant are viewed as a potential precedent to be turned against the ICC’s constituent countries.
The same dynamic may well be relevant to the Stalinesque showtrials perpetuated against Donald Trump in the United States; prosecutions which were plainly and unabashedly political in nature. Now that the ill-disguised objective of these prosecutions to prevent Donald Trump from acceeding to a second term as president has decidedly failed, the judiciary and prosecution have already begun to walk back the cases.
It is hoped that those obvious abuses of the American legal system by the Democratic Party will not be used as precedential basis for retaliation against Democratic Party officials by Trump and his administration, for to do so can only further undermine the American judiciary’s public credibility.
KALMAN H. RYESKYPetah Tikva
False designation
Shuki Friedman’s “A historic low for Israel” is woefully mistitled. Israel is not the culprit who is killing or starving Arabs in Gaza. Blame Hamas, the party that started this war, that built its military among the people and in the schools, hospitals, and mosques, steals donated food and medicine, and still holds Israeli captives. The real “historic low” describes the nations which adhere to the despicable ICC’s arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.
Are Jews the ones responsible for Jew-hatred? No, that designation is reserved for those who vilify Jews. Similarly, Israel is not responsible for this supposed lowering of its status. That false designation of Israel actually describes the useful idiots who abide by the ICC warrants. One hopes that the incoming Trump administration will remonstrate against America’s so-called allies who abide by the ICC arrest warrants.
And while Donald Trump is at it, he should withdraw American clout and money from the despicable United Nations and abrogate the treaty with the organization. This would reduce the UN to begging another country to host it. Perhaps Iran would provide the money, land, buildings, and diplomatic immunity that the US currently provides to the UN.
STEVE KRAMERKfar Saba
Gunboat diplomacy
In describing newly-appointed Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s challenging tasks (“Sa’ar’s mission,” editorial, November 20), you correctly state that “this mission is not impossible.” The editorial outlines all the diplomatic aims which lay ahead and how to achieve them. However, the prospect of success is only possible because of one important factor.
After the flaws and weaknesses displayed by the IDF and intelligence agencies on October 7, Israel’s fighting forces together with their vaunted inside knowledge of their enemies have once more reasserted themselves as the strong horse in the Levant. Hamas and Hezbollah have been crippled and Iran has been intimidated.Gunboat diplomacy is the most effective tool of a diplomat. To tweak Teddy Roosevelt, speak strongly and carry a big stick.
FRED EHRMANRa’anana
Condescending and imperialist
Regarding “An open letter to Israel’s new ambassador to the US” : One thing that Tova Herzl clearly mastered as a career diplomat was a condescending and imperialist tone. Despite her “mummy knows best, dear” lecture, I believe what she really means to convey is: Let’s hope the Right, both in Israel and the US, isn’t here too long so we can get back to things as they should be.
Herzl is even suggesting that midterm elections may give control in Congress to the Democrats and she is clearly praying for a Democrat president in 2028, which makes her pretense at evenhandedness a mockery. One wonders whether she was as concerned to court Republicans when she was a congressional liaison officer in Washington.
She is clearly a skilled operator, but thankfully we now have a straight-talking person and a government representative of the US electorate, as much as that clearly irks Tova Herzl.
DANIEL BAUMZichron Ya’acov