Peace on Earth, goodwill to PA
What a generous defense minister we have (“Gantz offers Palestinians series of goodwill gestures,” August 31).
Sure, why not lend the PA NIS 500 million – after all it costs money to support rampaging in Lod; lynching in Acre, riots in Atarot; deadly rocks thrown at Jewish cars in Judea and Samaria; demonization of Israel in world fora, etc. – and that is not to mention that the PA can (and will) now blithely carry on their policy of paying “wages” to attackers sitting in Israeli jails for harming Israeli civilians.
Why can’t a man with so rich a military history get it into his mind that any gesture of goodwill to the PA is seen by them as weakness and complete stupidity? Mahmoud Abbas is laughing all the way to his bank to pick up that fortune, a fortune that you and I have been deceived into contributing.
Gantz claims that by doing this he is “strengthening the PA” and therefore weakening Hamas. I do not think so. Sometimes it is better to recognize that the person opposite you is an enemy and react accordingly, rather than have someone opposite you who occasionally pretends to be almost a friend (when it suits him) but hates you and wants/intends to push you into the sea.
Wake up, Gantz, and see what is really going on or your lack of understanding of the situation in our region will be compared with that of US President Joe Biden.
LAURENCE BECKERJerusalem
Did Defense Minister Benny Gantz raise any key demands in his meeting with PS leader Mahmoud Abbas?
- Did Gantz demand that Abbas repeal the unprecedented PA law that provides salaries (a fee for the killer and a fee for family of the murderer) for life for anyone who murders a Jew?
- Did Gantz demand that Abbas repeal the PA law that metes out a death penalty to anyone who sells land to a Jew?
- Did Gantz demand that Abbas cancel the curriculum in the PA schools that demonizes Jews while praising those who murder Jews? (Full Disclosure: The Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research hired a team to review all 1,000 textbooks published by the PA ever since the PA began to publish its own texts in 2000, and not one single text teaches peace and reconciliation with Israel.)
- Did Gantz demand that Abbas remove his PHD from the shelves of Palestinian higher education? (Abbas penned a PHD at Moscow University alleging that the Holocaust of Jews during World War II was carried out by the Nazis and the Zionists.)
Our news agency and research center has posted these questions to Gantz, with no response.
The time has come to galvanize public opinion in Israel and in the world to ask that Israel make these demands, as conditions for political and commercial ties with the PA.
DAVID BEDEINDirector, Israel Resource News Agency
“Israel will make a series of goodwill gestures to the Palestinian Authority, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Monday after a rare meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas the night before in Ramallah.”
Goodwill gestures? Historian Benny Morris in his lecture “Jihad and Antisemitism in the 1948 War” said, “On the basis of the research I did for book 1948, which came out in 2008, I pointed out that the war was also a religious war, certainly from the Arab side, a jihad, they were waging jihad against the Jewish Zionists who were seen as infidels and were fighting over what they regarded as sacred territory.”
Goodwill gestures is not exactly something that worked at all throughout history during the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, Persia, Anatolia, the Balkans, North Africa, Sindt, India and Andalusia.
Is it not time that our political leadership started reading history? To quote Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s remark made regarding the US debacle in Afghanistan, but which is fully applicable to the Palestinians as well: “What makes you think they will act differently and how many times do you want that to happen before you wake up and realize that it is just not true? Take the world as it is not as you fantasize it to be.”
MLADEN ANDRIJASEVICBeersheba
Stranded in Afghanistan
“US strikes at ISIS as Kabul withdrawal nears end” (August 30) falls far short of the actual calamitous situation on the ground. After the slaughter of the 13 servicemen and servicewomen along with over 100 Afghan civilians in the Kabul terrorist attack, US President Joe Biden vowed that he would “make them pay.” Yet the long-distance retribution only took out only two unnamed low-rank unconnected terrorists. This will deter no one. The headline implies that the withdrawal was going smoothly, which could not be further from the truth. Regarding the evacuation of hundreds of stranded American citizens, Biden promised, “We will get you out,” then told them to leave the airport perimeter, and now the White House is admitting that this did not happen before Biden’s self-imposed deadline. He unbelievably appears to have out-sourced the future evacuation of remaining stranded citizens to the Taliban.
Biden and his cohorts abandoned the Afghan army, NATO, and European and Canadian armies without notice, putting the lie to his promise that “America is back.” It is hard to imagine how the evacuation could have been bungled on so many levels. Richard Kemp, Britain’s former military leader in Afghanistan made a comparison of the debacle with the 1973 Vietnam withdrawal. He said that it took the US to 15 years to overcome that, predicting America’s recovery from Afghanistan would take “decades.” After they left Vietnam in 1973, no one was threatening America. The same cannot be said now and Israel’s very survival has been extremely prejudiced.
Biden should not be impeached, Kemp concluded, he should be court-martialed.
DAVID SMITHRa’anana
Blood pressure
The editorial “End the bloodbath” (August 30) demands quick and unrelenting police work to end the horrific bloodshed that is being spilled in the Arab sector. However, in order to attack Arab crime in all its forms requires a full-court press involving the police, Shin Bet, income tax authorities, border patrol, etc. This will necessitate wiretaps, undercover agents and more effective new legislation.
One crucial underlying reason for the ongoing violence is the many fatherless homes in the Arab villages. A single mother of four can do little to stop her sons from joining a gang. Another problem is that the Arab MKs want to curb the violence but without providing the tools necessary to win this war on crime. This is what has happened in America where the large Democratic-run cities have thwarted the police at every turn, which has led to a sharp spike in felonious crime and has made the streets of many cities in America dangerous.
The Arab community has to decide what it wants. If they continue to resist effective law enforcement because of their misguided feelings about Israel, the violence will certainly continue and we will continue to observe the growing crime problem in the Arab sector.
MATTIAS ROTENBERGPetah Tikva
In “End the bloodbath” you give a detailed account of the unbearable situation in the Arab sector of our country in respect to the endless killings mostly of innocent (often very young) people within their society.
But I wonder why you didn’t mention at all the responsibility of the religious and other spiritual and political community leaders to improve the situation...
Why are they not asked to raise their voices against the crimes? Why are the Arab community leaders not urged to meet with the heads of the chamulot to reduce the killings and find other ways to solve their disputes?
Not only force but also education is needed to stop crime and honor the lives of fellow citizens.
H. COHNJerusalem
Conversion diversion
In “How to avoid the conversion distraction,” (August 29), Ilan Chaim envisages Israel as a completely secular state in which there will be freedom of religion so that the many “former Soviet Jews would now be accepted as Jews and full citizens.” What he conveniently omits mentioning is that the definition who is a Jew is a religious question, and that his intention is that the secular state will legislate on this fundamental religious matter.
His thesis is founded on the situation of those who came from Russia under the Israeli Law of Return, but did not satisfy the requirements of Jewish law to be classified as “Jews.” Their difficult status is the result of the Knesset enacting its own definition of what is a “Jew” for the question of return, but at the same time retaining a system that recognizes marriage only in accordance with Jewish law.
Why the Knesset acted this way is not relevant here, as my point is only that Chaim’s analysis is faulty and he misdirects his complaint, using the contradiction enacted by the Knesset to attack Orthodox Jews and their beliefs. Thus he uses the phrase “former Soviet Jews” as if the criteria for return determined for all purposes who is a Jew including for marriage. This is an attempt to appeal to emotion to demonstrate the obstinacy of the haredim. For all forms of halachic Jews those who came are full Israeli citizens just as haredim and Arabs, as that is the law of the State but they may unfortunately have been “Jews” only within the definition of the state’s Law of Return. There is nothing in Jewish law to prevent those having a formal marriage, but that law requires that in order to marry a Jew they must also be Jews in accordance with the provisions of Jewish law.
The present system in Israel, determining marriage by religion, is an enactment of the Knesset. If it produces problems, the Knesset should deal with it as part of its function in governing a secular state, but to say that it should so by changing the Jewish religion is simply an attack on that religion.
M. RABINHar Nof, Jerusalem
Bulgarian bulletin
“Bulgaria opts out of Durban IV Conference citing antisemitism” (August 28) reverberates with historical recollections.
During the Holocaust when Jews in almost every European country were being rounded up for deportation to their “Final Solution,” Bulgaria was a notable exception, despite of the fact that it was a wartime ally of Germany. Upon hearing of the orders for the roundup of all Bulgarians Jews on the next day, members of the Bulgarian Parliament, spent the entire night telephoning each other to object to the atrocity. The next day when Parliament convened, a petition was presented to King Boris to save the Jews, and he complied by immediately rescinding the order, thus saving some 43,000 Bulgarian Jews from certain death.
If a case can be made for morality in statehood, the Bulgarian government continues to present a sterling example.
MARION REISSBeit Shemesh
Time to toss Hamas
Regarding “Terrorists and parting shots” (August 27), Israelis take great pride in the fact theirs is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with more trees than 100 years earlier. For decades, Jewish schoolrooms everywhere had cardboard folders of a tree with coin slots for leaves. Children filled them from their allowance until another tree could be planted in Israel.
Palestinian Jews drained the swamps and made the desserts bloom. It is no small matter when forests and crops are set aflame, particularly if it was done intentionally.
Hamas, a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood and the client of Iran, has the upper hand in its asymmetrical war against the Jews. It can turn it on and off at will. Israel has no option but to respond and, when it does, the UN and the media and social media – like the well-trained puppets they are – will scream that Israel is using disproportionate force against the terrorists whom they call “activists.”
In truth, Israel has employed insufficient force. Hamas should have been destroyed years ago, giving Israel a quiet border and Gazans the opportunity to build decent lives.
With Hamas gone, the PA could reassert control over the Strip and, with the encouragement of the Abraham Accord states, finally settle its disputes with Israel.
LEN BENNETTOttawa, Ontario
Front-page affront
Regarding “‘Rabbi brothers committed severe sexual abuse at Jerusalem yeshiva” (August 30), while the news of the alleged abuse is distressing and the failure of the authorities to act quicker and more decisively than they did is puzzling, one might also wonder why our national English newspaper would choose to place this article on the top of the front page with such a larger banner side-to-side headline.
Let’s pray for the well-being of the victims, punishment for the perpetrators, and an end to such behavior everywhere.
CINDY MELMANRa’anana
Good puck charm
Great article by Ben Baruch (“Hockey in Holon: Ice sport takes over Holy Land despite heat,” August 26).
I want to share with readers that there is now a national Israeli women’s hockey team. I am the manager of the team. We’ve had two practices so far in Metulla and these girls are impressive.
I am a Canadian Israeli ice hockey player who played as a goalie in the beer leagues in Ontario for 20 years and I’m very impressed by the skill level of these young women on the national team. We are in the third division of the IIHF and we will be playing internationally in 2022 against three European countries as well as Iran, which will be very interesting indeed. We’ve had the support of the Canadian Embassy here in Israel. We might even be hosting the international games, which would be an incredible achievement and a wonderful start for our international participation.
ESTHER SILVERKfar Vradim
Honest Abe/ Dishonest Tlaib
Regarding “Tlaib: Release body of woman who tried to kill Israeli troops” (August 31), I am embarrassed as an American that there is a member of Congress so hate-filled, racist and twisted as to demand that Israel release a terrorist’s body when Hamas holds two innocent living Israeli citizens and two soldiers’ bodies.
Calling the terrorist a “loving daughter... killed by the Israeli government” without mentioning the heinous crime that she was in the middle of perpetrating underscores the callous and cynical use of lies and half-truths in language that are the trademark of Rep. Rashida Tlaib and her ilk.
“End the bloodbath” (August 30) notes that scores of Arabs are killed by Arabs in violent incidents in Arab areas of Israel each year. Is anyone really surprised that Tlaib, who claims to care so much about the location of a dead terrorist’s body, has nothing to say about that – not to mention concern for living Americans newly stranded and trapped in Afghanistan by her president?
BETH GOLDBERGNew York