By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: PIXABAY)UN Hamas failDuring the Hanukkah holiday, Israel received a double dose of bad news.First, in Ireland, the Irish Senate approved ending trade with Judea and Samaria, as well as with the Jewish areas of Jerusalem over the pre-1967 lines.Sadly, Senators in Dublin applauded after the vote.Second, despite heroic efforts by US Ambassador Nikki Haley, the United Nations failed to adopt a United States resolution condemning Hamas terrorism (“Despite 87 votes, UNGA fails to censure Hamas,” December 9).After our 2,000 years of persecution in the Diaspora, the nations seem intent on dictating to Jews where they can live in their own country, while denying their links to biblical Jerusalem.The Israeli government and its citizens should counter the two measures by restricting diplomatic ties, travel and trade to Ireland and other nations that support anti-Israel measures like BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions), while failing to recognize terrorism against Jews.The Jewish state needs to focus on teaching others about its ancestral and biblical history. Hopefully, with a helping hand from the United States, the tide will turn on spreading global antisemitism.ANTHONY P. LEVATINO
Rochester, NYPose questions to SaudisConcerning “Report: PM working to normalize ties with Saudis before elections” (December 9), Is the increased Saudi support for war indoctrination throughout the PA being ignored by the governments of Israel and the US?We have posed the unanswered questions to the Saudi embassy in DC:• Will Saudi Arabia cancel the state of war with Israel that it declared in 1948?• Will Saudi Arabia maintain its multi-billion dollar funding of Middle East studies departments in the universities of the US and other nations that infuse higher education with anti-Israeli curricula?• Will Saudi Arabia continue to promote “right of return” education for UNRWA?• Will Saudi Arabia continue to support the Arab boycott of Israel office?Now is the time for Israel to pose questions like these.DAVID BEDEINDirector, Israel Resource News AgencyPose questions to PopeRegarding “Abbas, in first meeting since J’lem embassy move, says he’s ‘counting on’ Pope” (December 3), the Pope met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas. There was so much to discuss.The Pope could have begun by asking why the Arabs rejected every very fair peace offer: they said no to Israel’s peace offers in 1947 (no to partition), no in 1967 (Khartoum), no in 2000 (Camp David), no in 2001 (Taba), no in 2008 (Olmert’s offer), and no in 2012.He should have asked why they refuse to recognize the legal state of Israel, why they vote with Hamas, a Iran-funded jihadi terrorist group whose charter calls for the destruction of Jews and Israel.The Pope might also ask about characterization of Israelis and Jews as “devils, the spawn of Satan” in their media, schools and textbooks, as well as their generous financial incentives and rewards for murdering Jews as a holy act of jihad.In 2015, the Pope recognized a “Palestinian state,” rewarding and legitimizing violence and terrorism. He, in effect, told the world, “Yes, use suicide bombs. Fire rockets at civilians. Instead of seeking peace, continue with terrorism and ye shall be rewarded.” This is from a holy man? Will he be rewarding ISIS next or Islamic terrorists Boko Haram?By not raising issues like these, the Pope enables and encourages Arabs to propagate Big Lies about Israel and Jews – attempting to rewrite the indigenous Jewish people out of their long history in this region.GINETTE WEINERScottsdale, AZOur indigenous rightsRegarding “An ignorant ‘New York Times” trashes the Maccabees” (December 4), the contemporary message of Hanukkah is this.We who are active in countering false claims against Israel, are accustomed to hearing blatant lies about our country being an “apartheid state, committing genocide, occupying someone else’s land, etc.,” but think about this. If Hanukkah represents anything, it is the message of how we Jews fought off Greece, an ancient European colonial power, because we were (and are) the indigenous people in our own land. Remember that whenever you hear someone claim that we are “colonizing occupiers.” If you want to see real apartheid, how about the insistence of the Palestinian leadership that no Jew can be a Palestinian in a State of Palestine? That is genuine racist apartheid.BARRY SHAWNetanya.Democracy on the ropesAs always, after reading Caroline Glick’s weekly column, I was yet again left in awe of her analytical ability and her skill in pinpointing and exposing the flaws in the Israeli political scene. In her analysis this week of the unconstitutional seizure of power by the Attorney General (“Israel’s Gatekeepers vs Democracy,” December 7), she is absolutely correct.She has given three reasons why it has become impossible to reinstate democracy by curbing the powers of Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit. However, I believe that she is mistaken in her conclusion in which she reasons that the only way now left for the country to re-instate democracy in which the people elect their leaders whose authority to rule cannot be limited by unelected government officials, is to “go to elections and ask for a clear mandate from the public.”In this I think Glick is overly optimistic. I am saddened to opine that even that will not cure anything – we will just get more of the same and for the same reasons that she herself has identified in her brilliant article.LAURENCE BECKERJerusalemMissiles pointed at us“‘Hezbollah has only a handful of precise missile due to IDF’” (December 7) is, I believe, misinformed, misleading and irresponsible – particularly as the headline in the FrontLines section of the same issue said exactly the opposite.I don’t know where the writer gets his defense information from, but it is the type of euphoric misinformation that led us to near defeat in the Yom Kippur War.Does the writer really believe that nearly all of the 140,000 missiles Hezbollah is reputed to have will miss their mark and just those few, so-called “precise” missiles will hit the target?MAT HARUNIHerzliyaThe right side of the conflictRegarding “EU, in unusual move, warns Palestinians to drop Muslim-only language for Temple Mount” (December 3), Israel’s pre-1967 “borders” were simply the armistice lines associated with the end of the Arab-initiated 1948 war aimed at preventing Israel’s rebirth in the Jews’ ancestral homeland. It was the refusal of Arab states to negotiate on setting permanent borders (viewed as a tacit admission that the Arab armies had been defeated and that Israel had, indeed, been reborn) that prevented the armistice lines from becoming borders. Only after Arab nations failed in their 1967 attempt to destroy Israel and annihilate her people did Israel’s enemies decide that the armistice lines were sacrosanct, not to be crossed, no matter what the provocation.Likewise, the Palestinians did not get a legitimate claim to any part of Jerusalem simply because Jordan illegally occupied part of the city for 19 years. The original PLO Charter, written in 1964, said as much. Palestinian rhetoric and actions indicate that Palestinian rule over any part of Jerusalem would be no better than Jordanian rule had been (ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population, destruction of synagogues, desecration of cemeteries). The EU has a long way to go before it can be credited with being on the right side of the Israel-Arab conflict.TOBY BLOCKAtlantaMerkel harms Israel Regarding “Merkel urged EU states not to move embassies to Israel” (December 5), Germany has not only long been antagonistic to Israel in UN votes and has pushed for labeling of products from Judea and Samaria, but now we find out that it has also applied shocking full-court behind-the-scenes pressure against European Union countries that are interested in moving their embassies to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.With smiling “friends” like this, who needs enemies?AMI BERKOWITZHaifaWith the prospect of German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaving power in Germany and the whole German political scene undergoing a radical change, some pundits are remarking on the rise of more extremist politics in the country. The Germany we have kept in check with NATO and the EU for over 70 years and have come to respect for its relatively honest view of its own history is coming to an end.Should we be surprised? As we bought German cars and cheered the downfall of the Berlin Wall and approved of the reunification of Germany we may have been too optimistic. You don’t get over Nazi indoctrination and the generations of growing antisemitism in Germany since the early 19th century in just 70 years.NORMAN RAVITCHSavannah, Ga.
