Seeming derangement
All through the four years of Joe Biden’s presidency and in the period when he was running for the position, pundit Douglas Bloomfield said almost nothing about Biden. Instead, Jerusalem Post readers were subjected to a constant diatribe against Donald Trump. Bloomfield’s seeming derangement covered a wide range of slurs, including the well-known lie against Trump regarding his statement that were “good people on both sides.” Trump’s actual statement related to the discussion on pulling down statues of former presidents who were slave owners, not white supremacy.
Now, with Trump the president-elect for a second term, all that seems to have changed in the days leading up to the January 20 inauguration, as detailed in Bloomfield’s “The senility system strikes again” (January 9). Here he admits that Joe Biden aged quicker than most presidents, and he blames the conservative media for “deceptively altered clips” and “misleading camera angles” (quotes are his), whereas Biden’s decline was evident to all who saw him. The writer says that Nancy Pelosi was the one who convinced Biden to pass the torch to the younger Vice President Harris, and we all know how that worked out.
All of a sudden Bloomfield now agrees that the signs were there, adding that culprits in the cover-up include staff, the media, and special interest groups who all knew the actual situation. I don’t understand how Bloomfield expects to avoid culpability in these statements of his in the final days leading to the second inauguration of Donald Trump as president.
This will go down as one of the biggest political hoaxes of modern times, when the American citizenship was effectively deprived of its commander-in-chief, and the leader of the free world was AWOL.
DAVID SMITHRa’anana
The legacy of Jimmy Carter
Regarding “Thank you, Jimmy Carter” (January 8): I appreciate the fact that Yoram Dori, the author of this article, was a strategic adviser to Shimon Peres from 1990 to 2016. However, in his listing of other US presidents who were helpful to Israel, he neglected to mention Donald Trump, who Michael Oren – a former ambassador to the US – described as the best US president for Israel in 70 years. Oren said this even before Trump’s historic Abraham Accords were negotiated and accomplished which truly heralded a new era of peace between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
Come to think of it, Mr. Dori also failed to mention president Richard Nixon, without whose help in airlifting needed military supplies during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, who knows how that war would have ended up?Mr. Dori worked with Shimon Peres, a failed politician who, while serving as Israel’s president, ran his own foreign policy, trying to undercut the elected government policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
If any country in the Middle East needs to thank Jimmy Carter, it is Iran. President Carter was instrumental in deposing the shah of Iran, which heralded the ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution. Since then, Iran has been funding and responsible for most of the terrorist organizations and that thousands upon thousands of innocent people have been jailed, tortured and murdered in Iran and throughout the Middle East and beyond.
That is the legacy of Jimmy Carter, even more so than the Camp David Accords, which culminated a process initiated by Anwar Sadat through his history-making trip to Israel.
NORMAN DEROVANMa’aleh Adumim
How democracy works
In “How do we stop the migration from Israel?” (January 10), Yedidia Stern presents the thesis that many Israelis are leaving Israel because of the lack of democracy in this country. Stern claims that “opposition voters have discovered with great alarm that a slim majority in the Knesset is plotting to ‘steal’ the country, through a takeover that would ‘upend the natural order.’” Stern goes on to say that “there are many... who are no longer sure that the democratic system is a stable, fundamental fact of our national life.”
What really bothers Stern is that the democratically elected Knesset wishes to pass laws or introduce policies with which Stern disagrees. Consider, for example, the United States, widely considered to be a democracy. In recent years, American presidents have changed from Obama to Trump to Biden and back to Trump. Obama and Biden belong to one party, while Trump belongs to a different party. In 2016, Trump won by virtue of the Electoral College count, but lost in the popular vote. Yet no one questions the right of each new administration to introduce policies or to pass laws which “upend” the policies or laws of the previous administration.
Unlike Stern, no American complains about this. If the previous administration doesn’t like policies or laws that the new administration introduces, its only solution is to try to win the next election. This is how democracy works.
NATHAN AVIEZERPetah Tikva
Take a hard look
Regarding “Ultra-Orthodox men assault IDF Maj.-Gen. David Zini in Bnei Brak restaurant” (January 12): The three men arrested after they took part in the mob attack need to take a long hard look at themselves. Our sages studied and also fought when called upon. Were they lesser men than you? Perhaps they were God’s preference for how His people should behave in order to protect His land to which He returned us to build and settle.
Yes, we have to live according to His laws and commandments. This doesn’t remove the obligation for fit men and women to physically defend the land. Every effort has been made to integrate the ultra-Orthodox and in fact many, but not enough, are already serving in different capacities. Many, sadly, have also lost their lives, as have far too many of our brave soldiers.
The country is at war with enemies sworn to our total destruction and who so far have done too good a job. The dead are crying out to you as are the living. Those who truly dedicate every moment of their time to study and pray will help those in the majority who are able and must accept the call to fight and defend our land and people.
EDITH OGNALLNetanya