All fired up
Riding in a bus down Route 1 from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, my fellow passengers and I were in shock to see massive flames and smoke larger than any disaster I could have imagined (“Israel requests international aid amid largest fire since Carmel blaze,” August 17). I will never forget the sight.
I just want to express my sadness and best wishes to all of my fellow countrymen whose lives and homes were affected and pray we never experience anything like this again. We are all in this together.
LEAH RUBINJerusalem
Aghast about Afghanistan
Regarding “US halts Kabul evacuations as chaos reigns at airport” (August 17), some media commentators are trying to lay the blame for the Afghanistan debacle on Donald Trump and Joe Biden equally, claiming Biden mistakenly pursued a flawed Trump policy. It is certainly true that from the moment Trump took office in 2017, he pledged to put an end to the conflict and bring the American forces back home. It took two years of secret back-channel negotiations before US-Taliban peace talks began on February 25, 2019. Abdul Ghani Barada, the co-founder of the Taliban, was at the table.
They appeared successful. Agreement was quickly reached on a draft peace deal involving the withdrawal of US and international troops from Afghanistan, matched by an undertaking by the Taliban to prohibit other jihadist groups operating within the country. This extraordinary arrangement between the world’s leading power and a hardline extremist Islamist movement was headed: “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban, and the United States of America.”
This Doha deal was greeted with optimism by Trump. “I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show we’re not all wasting time,” he said.
Further negotiations followed, and with less than a week remaining of the Trump presidency, the US military met its goal of reducing the number of soldiers in Afghanistan to about 2,500. The deal that Trump reached with the Taliban included, as the quid pro quo for the US final withdrawal, an agreement by the Taliban to enter serious peace negotiations with the Afghan government, and also a pledge that it would never allow the regions it controlled to be used as a refuge by extremist groups like al-Qaeda or ISIS. If Biden had indeed followed through, US troops would have left Afghanistan by the end of May, the Afghan government would still be in power, and the Taliban would either have negotiated some form of joint stable administration, or be in the process of doing so.
I am afraid that responsibility for the current situation rests fairly and squarely on the Biden administration.
NEVILLE TELLERBeit Shemesh
In his June G-7 and North Atlantic Treaty Organization meetings, US President Joe Biden told skeptical allies, “America is back.”
After this Afghan debacle, it becomes evident that he mis-read the teleprompter. What he meant to say was “America is turning its back.”
CHAYA BITONTiberiasYou have to wonder whether all the Donald Trump haters are already missing him after the shameful, degrading and hysterical withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan with thousands of Afghans attempting to board the last US airplane to fly and flee out of Kabul, some terrified Afghans clinging to the wheels of the plane and then falling off and plunging to their death. The details of this debacle as well as Joe Biden’s recent statement that he believes that the “well-equipped, well trained” Afghan army will defeat the Taliban will be burned into the world’s memory for decades to come.
The next stage of this mesmerizing colossal defeat will be American liberal beliefs that the Taliban will live up to their promise to be more moderate and protect women’s rights. A seat in the UN for Taliban Afghanistan will soon follow. If the Americans have any national pride and will left at all, expect the Democrats to lose big in the next US election no matter who they run for president.
It won’t be Biden, that’s for sure.
YIGAL HOROWITZ, PhDBeersheba
I feel for you, my friends who have made aliyah from the great United States of America; America, protector of human rights of all peoples, champion of democracy, policeman of the world. I feel for you the confusion and, yes, the shame that you must be experiencing in the shadow of the legendary Uncle Sam crawling away from Afghanistan with his tail between its legs, being hounded by a howling rabble of bloodthirsty terrorists; with frightened Americans scrambling to get on a plane and flee from the certain bloodbath that will follow their hasty exit, leaving behind them all those who had befriended them and worked with them to improve the lot of the Afghanis, their erstwhile friends who are now trembling in sheer fear of what awaits them at the hands of the animalistic insurgents.
It was the horrific massacre in New York on 9/11 that first stimulated America into action to rid the world of the terrible Taliban. It was acts of unimaginable revulsion like the beheading of the British soldier in broad daylight on the streets of London, like the driving of a huge truck through a crowded pedestrian thoroughfare in the South of France that caused the US to take up the challenge and bring order to that part of the world.
Well, they have failed miserably. They failed in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, and, going back, in Vietnam too. They failed not because they fought badly, were ill-equipped or lacked bravery – they failed because America just does not understand the Islamist mind and culture. America judges and makes its calculations based on American values, logic, loyalties and social norms. They imagine that their adversaries have the same values and they have no concept whatsoever of the phenomenon that “Yes” at best means “Yes for the time being” but generally actually means “Okay but we will get you at the next opportunity.”
I feel for you my friends that your great country has become a paper tiger. Its roar is derided by its adversaries. No longer does the reprimanding voice of an American president serve as a deterrent – not to the Taliban, not to the Arabs and not even to the Iranians.
We here in Israel, must take a deep breath and inwardly digest this dangerous new reality.
LAURENCE BECKERJerusalem
Some 20 years ago, US forces were sent to Afghanistan to seek out Bin Laden but then stayed to fight against tribal insurgencies, training and upgrading the home country’s army. Following the Taliban’s rapid success, President Joe Biden admitted he was taken by surprise: “This did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.”
The horror of the panicked haphazard withdrawal will certainly give succor to the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah as well of course their paymaster Iran. Hopefully though we will never require actual American troops on the ground in Israel, but we do anticipate the long-term and continued support of the US administration.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will be fully cognizant of all this when his upcoming meeting takes place in the White House. He should need no reminding that to fight the good fight you need to rely on your own intelligence and resources. My advice: Be aware – very aware.
STEPHEN VISHNICK Tel Aviv
Kabul 2021 may resemble Saigon 1975 yet there is a crucial difference – and not the one Seth Frantzman mentions (“Kabul disaster isn’t like Saigon, where US saved thousands in 1975,” August 16). The West in 1975 understood Communist ideology very well. The West today has yet to do its homework on Islamic “Medina” ideology.
It is therefore imperative that in view of Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Aug 4 warning that “Iran is 10 weeks from breakout to a nuclear weapon,” Israel should make its own decisions and not be distracted by the Biden administration whose understanding of the Shia “Twelvers” in Iran is no better than their understanding of the Taliban Sunni jihadists in Afghanistan.
MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC Beersheba
The withdrawal of the US Army from Afghanistan had essentially the same result as the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza.
Isn’t that also what would happen if we withdrew from Judea and Samaria to implement a “two-state” solution?
BARRY LEONARD WERNERNetanya
UNRWA edu-hate-tion
Raphael Lapin’s detailed recommendations for resolving or at least diminishing our conflict with the Palestinians (“Variations on an old theme,” August 15) suffer from the same glaring fault as all the previous proposals.
The major impediment is not, as he suggests, the expansion of Jewish settlements, but rather the Palestinian educational system. Lapin does not take into account the fact that the upcoming generation of suit-wearing and seemingly sophisticated representatives of the Palestinians will have been indoctrinated from childhood in a system that teaches that Israel has no right to exist and that Jews have no right to life.
Unless and until Israel removes and replaces UNRWA control of the Palestinian school curriculum, there is no possibility for peace. And even then, it will take at least two generations until Lapin’s recommendations can be considered.
JAY SHAPIROTel Aviv
Core story
In “We can no longer ignore anti-Zionist Jews” (August 17), Elchanan Poupko propounds the question that he claims “young anti-Zionist Jews” ask: “Why can’t we have Judaism without Zionism?”
It is ultimately a nonsensical question. Judaism exists solely within the four squares of the Tanach (the Bible). That ancient scripture has only one foundational narrative: the Jewish people’s return to Zion. Zionism is the 4,000-year-old core story of Judaism. It has no other. While there are moral and ethical underpinnings to that story, Zionism remains the foundational narrative of Judaism.
There is no Judaism without Zionism; the Jewish Bible makes that clear. We should not ignore anti-Zionist Jews; we must tell them that their position is an oxymoron and advise them to study the Bible for guidance.
RICHARD SHERMANMargate, Florida
What a wonderful article (“From the river to the sea – righting the wrong,” August 11). It is crisp and concise, fair and objective. While ignoring back and forth unwinnable historical claims, it absolutely identifies the essence of the Israeli Palestinian issue.
I remember speaking to a Christian tour group 20 years ago, and when they asked me about the “peace process,” I told them that when Israelis could believe that the Palestinians accepted the permanent existence of the State of Israel, all the rest of the issues would be much less difficult to resolve. But as this article points out, that has not yet come to pass.
MATT SCHEINJerusalem
A white slight
In “Miri Regev announces intent to run for prime minister” (August 15), Regev makes a shocking statement characterizing her opposition as “white” – a clear copycat of the far-left attacks in the United States on anyone who does not agree with their political agenda as being racist, i.e. “white.”
Regev might be interested to know that in the realm of such name-calling, she herself as a Jew would be placed squarely into that category as well. She must surely be aware that historically Israel’s ethnic diversity is not equivalent to the past slavery issue in the American South that brought the racial issue to the fore there.
If indeed she wants to garner support for future political endeavors she might do well to show her ability to bring people together instead of fomenting hate and divisiveness.
MARION REISSBeit Shemesh
Disturbing Durban
Bernard Henri-Levy accurately describes the 2001 World Conference Against Racism (“Boycott Durban IV,” August 13) which some have called the most potent symbol of organized hate against Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. The account of this ill-conceived conference – the progenitor of the BDS movement and the libelous charges that Israel is an “apartheid state” – brought back perhaps the most memorable week of my diplomatic career.
As a member of the US delegation, I witnessed the contempt and hatred that supposedly honorable people harbored toward Israel and the Jewish people. Demonstrators chanted antisemitic slogans, distributed caricatures of Jews that would have done 1930s Nazis proud, and brandished The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This was the only time in my diplomatic career, including service with the Coalition forces in Iraq in 2004, when I feared for my personal safety.
There had been consideration whether the US should boycott the original Durban conference in light of the antisemitic underpinnings that had become apparent during the preparatory process. While it was eventually decided to send a small delegation, the US rightly withdrew from the hate-fest before it ended. I returned to the ostensible safety of American soil following our hasty departure from Durban.
Our report on the conference days later was interrupted as we were informed that the Twin Towers had been hit. I watched smoke rising from the Pentagon and participated in an evacuation for the second time in a week – this time from the State Department building in Washington.
These two events demonstrated that the fates of Israel and the US are inextricably linked. Both countries represent freedom and human rights against forces of evil that would return the world to its darkest times.
The US and other democratic countries have decided to boycott the planned celebration of the anniversary of the Durban conference this September. The Biden administration must take further concrete steps to demonstrate the US’s steadfast opposition to all forms of antisemitism and its unwavering support for Israel against her enemies. It is also critical that the US consider Israel’s security interests uppermost when deciding whether to renew the nuclear agreement with Iran – a country that has repeatedly threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
EFRAIM A. COHENZichron Yaakov