Blind loyalty
Regarding “Is Trump’s team the best available?” (December 26): The answer to Douglas Bloomfield’s question is a resounding “no.” Why? The president-elect’s cabinet and other appointments have been based primarily on blind loyalty to him and his positions, no matter how outrageous, rather than on competence, experience, and proper conduct.
Consistent with Trump’s repeated claims that climate change is a hoax and his pledge to dismantle and repeal Biden administration climate regulations, he has nominated other deniers to key environmental positions. For example, his nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, consistently voted against legislation designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and has an environmental rating of only 14% from the League of Conservation Voters.
In addition, Trump has nominated people to key governmental positions who have minimal experience in the positions for which they have been nominated, have been accused of sexual misconduct, or whose main claim to fame is that they are Fox News commentators.
Trump’s poor choices could have negative consequences for the US, Israel, and, indeed, the world. Hopefully, the US Senate will reject them and force him to make far better choices.
RICHARD H. SCHWARTZ
Shoresh
Douglas Bloomfield demonstrates once again that he cannot abide the November election results. No doubt Bloomfield’s view of the “best available” nominee is anyone who would continue the outgoing administration’s policies. He rejects the mandate given to Trump to reverse President Joe Biden’s failures.
For example, Bloomfield demeans the nominee for attorney general Pam Bondi and FBI director-nominee Kash Patel, placing them in a list that includes “assorted Fox News fugitives.” He does not mention that Bondi was Florida’s widely respected and highly successful AG. Patel has served as a public defender, federal prosecutor, senior director of the National Security Council’s Counterterrorism Directorate, principal deputy to the acting director of national intelligence, and chief of staff to the acting defense secretary. Trump selected them to eliminate the politicization that has infected the Justice Department and FBI, thereby renewing these government bodies’ diminished professionalism and public trust.
Bloomfield says that Patel will prosecute members of the January 6 committee, “starting with former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney.” Recall the Democrats’ incessant refrain: “Nobody is above the law.” Cheney, who, as the committee’s vice chair, freely expressed her hatred for Trump, has been credibly accused of tampering with a key witness. Also, thousands of pages of committee evidence and videos of witness interviews are said to have disappeared.
Bloomfield says that Trump “falsely accuses [the FBI] of wrongly invading his home” to seize classified documents. President Trump was empowered to reclassify and remove documents from his office. He had complied with FBI recommendations for storing and protecting documents, making the raid unnecessary. As senator and vice president, Biden had no authority to remove and retain classified documents. The FBI never raided Biden’s home or other locations where allegedly illegally-taken documents were improperly stored.
Bloomfield never urged Biden to select the “best available” candidates. Pete Buttigieg was a failed mayor and now an even bigger failure as transportation secretary. He was chosen only because he is openly gay. Biden selected Kamala Harris to be his vice president. Her primary qualifications were that she was an African American woman and that she would not outshine the lackluster Biden. Democratic insiders rewarded her for being one of history’s least accomplished vice presidents by anointing her as the party’s presidential candidate without benefit of an open selection process.
EFRAIM COHEN
Zichron Ya’acov
Courageous footsteps
Yaakov Katz is to be commended for “The media was also responsible for October 7” (December 27). However, I doubt if many, if any, of his fellow journalists will follow in his courageous footsteps and admit to their failures. More likely they will criticize, censure, castigate and even condemn him.
He writes of the early 2023 briefing given to journalists by the IDF chief of staff, lasting two hours, including questions and answers. Hamas and Gaza took up perhaps fifteen minutes, says Katz.
He writes of the Military Intelligence briefing given to members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee just six months before October 2023 which went on for hours but when asked about Hamas the reply was simply: “Nothing new; they are deterred.”
Now we can better understand how and why Prime Minister Netanyahu, prior to the disaster of October 7, was so ill-informed of the true situation regarding Hamas and Gaza. Now we can better understand the motivation of the Military Intelligence staffers who chose to try and bypass the usual chain of transmitting information to the prime minister and approach him directly.
Thank you, Yaakov Katz.
BERYL RATZER
Netanya
Friendship and support
In Nicholas Potter’s “No more than a Faustian pact: Alliances with ‘pro-Israel’ far Right parties in Europe” (December 24), he despairs at any alliance with Europe’s sprouting right-wing parties which have, in the past, expressed antisemitic views but which are now publicly rejecting them.
The problem with such a noble proposition is that it ignores the alternative, which would mean dealing only with noble upright tolerant left-wing governments that all stab us in the back and sometimes the front, as well.
Realpolitik is not a game for the fainthearted; it is hardheaded, backstabbing, immoral and double-dealing, and at this point in time, these right-wing parties express friendship and support for Israel which is sorely missing from those we used to consider allies, such as the UK, EU, Canada and until Trump, even the US.
DANIEL BAUM
Zichron Ya’acov