Letters to the Editor May 24, 2021: On the post-rocket docket

American generosity in providing financial assistance was indispensable in the reconstruction of both Germany and Japan after World War II. This assistance began once both Germany and Japan had surrendered unconditionally; no assistance at all was provided before the countries agreed to surrender.

In the latest situation in Gaza, it is clear that Hamas has neither surrendered nor changed any of its intentions toward destroying Israel. Despite this, US President Joe Biden seems determined to provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza. 

As a matter of interest this is not the first time that financial assistance has been offered. About a decade ago USAID managed to get pledges of over a billion dollars for such a project. It would have resulted in 21st century-level fresh water, electrical power stations, proper sewage treatment and other infrastructure projects for Gaza. The idea was to get international companies to bid for the projects. The winning companies would provide thousands of locals with employment.

So what happened? Hamas insisted that the money should be given to them and that they would run the projects. This demand was rejected outright by all the donors. They realized that the money would not be used for the purpose that it was intended for. In the end none of the projects materialized and the pledges were withdrawn. 

Despite the claims of victory now by Hamas, Gaza is presently on the ropes. By attacking Israel, Hamas has exacerbated the problems of Gaza. Its citizens will soon have almost no electricity, insufficient drinking water and a crumbling infrastructure. Without help there will also be massive unemployment. Gaza desperately needs aid.

This aid should be massive in scale but should be conditional on Hamas accepting the three principles outlined by the Quartet (the UN, the EU, Russia and the US): Hamas has to recognize Israel, accept past agreements with Israel and renounce terrorism.

Without a change in the policies of Hamas, part of the aid will be used to build better rockets to be used against Israel in the future. Humanitarian aid should not be provided to an unreformed Hamas. Proving aid without reforming Hamas will be rewarding a terrorist entity for firing thousands of rockets at Israel. Aid should come at a political price. Hamas needs to end its terrorist policies once and for all. No aid without reform. 

How accurate Gil Hoffman’s predictions for Israel’s post-rocket bombardment political tapestry prove to be remains to be seen, but two points are worth keeping in mind, particularly since we might, again, be entering into an election phase.

In the first place, is the possibility that the prime minister or one of his wingmen intentionally prolonged – or even provoked – the engagement with Hamas in order to disrupt Yair Lapid’s attempt to cobble together a coalition so utterly farfetched? We’ve seen, time and time again, members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s entourage – not to mention the boss himself – acting unscrupulously when it comes to political objectives. It may be that the loss of lives and the destruction of property were considered to be minor consequences in order to keep the Netanyahu locomotive on track. It won’t be the first time that political decisions were formed on the basis that the ends justify the means and it most certainly will not be the last.

What, though, makes the above nearly forgivable is the frighteningly reckless suggestion from Labor and Meretz that Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid put together a coalition with Ra’am and the Joint List. The former, granted, demonstrated some willingness to have Israel’s Arab population become more integrated into mainstream Israeli politics, and I suspect that sooner or later Mansour Abbas will become a key player and not merely a “kingmaker.” 

The Joint List, though, is comprised of outspoken enemies of the state of Israel, and no doubt were in the front row of the Hamas cheerleaders. I understand that there are those who would like nothing better than to have Lapid put together a Center-Left coalition, but to include the Joint List as partners is a red line not to be crossed. I would like to think, therefore, that Lapid – or anyone else for that matter – will automatically eliminate Labor and Meretz as coalition cohorts. As the saying goes, the friend of my enemy is my enemy as well.

Or something like that.

Ruthie Blum (“Hasbara can’t combat Jew-hatred,” May 21) correctly observes that “no amount of [hasbara], regardless of its quality, can counter anti-Zionism and its root, antisemitism.” 

Sadly, there will always be those who hate Israel irrationally, no matter what the truth may be. However, that in no way obviates the importance of hasbara to Israel’s survival. 

Contrary to what many in this country might think, Israel is not the central issue on the minds of the vast majority of human beings. In fact, huge numbers of people around the world have only the vaguest information about Israel (if any at all), and have yet to make up their minds about the issues facing this region. 

Israel’s hasbara efforts must be directed toward these “undecideds.” If Israel can win them over, they will exert the necessary pressure on their governments and the media to support us. Even if they are not totally won over to Israel’s position at the outset, they will at least realize that there are two sides to the story when confronted with biased and often inaccurate allegations by our enemies. 

Without vehement hasbara, those who know little about this country could reasonably conclude that there is no valid defense to the unending criticisms being hurled at Israel. After all, if there were, Israel would be shouting it from the rooftops. 

Israel must participate in the public diplomacy game with all its energy and resources. While hasbara, by itself, will not guarantee Israel’s survival, abandoning the playing field could well contribute to victory for the other side. 

It has been said that the world’s moral compass has become utterly dysfunctional when it comes to Israel. Part of reorienting that compass is showing people who are as yet uninformed the accurate direction to which the needle should point. 

At the end of last week, I began to believe I had stumbled into a new version of The Jerusalem Post: The Palestinian Post!

I was flabbergasted, that editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz had apparently joined the growing Arabist group of Israel-bashers with his article “AP tower: Anatomy of an IDF diplomatic fiasco” (May 21).

He accused the IDF of failure to “recognize the immediate need to shape the post-bombing narrative,” among other “failures” after the bombing of the tower housing news outlets and more importantly, Hamas. They had entrenched offices in the same building...as always, putting civilians in harm’s way.

This article was written on the day the truce went into effect.

The day before that article, while the war was still raging and thousands of rockets were raining down on Israel, Gershon Baskin and Aviv Tatarsky (a newcomer to the pro-Arab scene) wrote articles about Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. They had the unmitigated gall to refer to the Temple Mount as either al-Aqsa/Temple Mount or Temple Mount/Hiram al-Sharif.

Baskin accused the Israeli government of “pressing the nerve center of the conflict – al-Aqsa/Temple Mount– that led to a rise in the temperature of hostility between Israel and the Palestinians.”

Enter the newcomer Arabist, Tatarsky, and his take on the “Jerusalem problem.” Israel is “consistently working to erode the status quo on the Temple Mount/Hiram al-Sharif.”

These are Israeli citizens positioned to help the Israeli cause, whether through the newspaper or their jobs as “peace negotiator or researcher.” Yet, they have become the voices of the Left and in doing so have betrayed Israel and the people.

The Post must think carefully about the direction it seems to be taking. I read it now because it is the only newspaper in English with a semblance of Right-leaning articles.

Stick to those articles and reporters and you’ll remain The Jerusalem Post.

Editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz is understandably annoyed. First, he felt the press had been duped by the tweet announcing “the IDF & ground troops are attacking Gaza.”

No mention is made of troops actually being inside Gaza, if one reads the tweet correctly. However, the assumption is all too obvious, reminiscent of the family riddles that mention parents, sisters and brothers, and the answer, which seems so difficult, has actually already appeared in the question.

In “IDF diplomatic fiasco” (May 21) he goes even further, suggesting that the destruction of a building allegedly negatively impacted Israel’s course of action in the following days. Unfortunately, his argument is riddled with cracks, all mentioned in the article.

He explains that the building’s owner was told by the Security Agency to clear the building.

“He started with the Associated Press,” meaning that those employees had almost an hour to remove whatever they felt to be important to them.

Just before the deadline ran out, the owner was called again, asking if the building was empty. He requested another 10 minutes for “four people, wearing press vests... to get their cameras and gear.”

Surely, the first things any journalist would grab, would be data storage devices, being small, and the apparatus for recording anything that may occur in the next hours or days. For example, the collapse of the building, and any collateral damage it may cause. So why had they left the most important things to the end?

The owner made a point to claim “they’re not going to get weapons.” Well, actually, nobody insinuated as such, so why mention it? Probably there was something far more important than simple weaponry to be saved by four unidentified people from a now completely empty building. 

It is possible that the claims made recently in IDF circles, that Hamas may have equipment for engaging in electronic warfare are in no way false, and this may have been what was so important to save from the building, without anyone seeing it.

I understand that Katz would like the press to be treated fairly, it is, after all, his metier, but sometimes one must look beyond the obvious to see the real story, or even truth behind the matter.

Often, the details of operations only come out much later, because of security concerns. That doesn’t necessarily mean that one is deceiving the Press or the public.

Regarding “Israel accepts truce after 11 days of Gaza combat” (May 21), Hamas won. Iran won. Israel and the US lost.

4,000 rockets were fired into Israel because four Arab families refused to pay rent to Jewish landlords. Hamas and Islamic Jihad should have been vanquished.

What were the Americans and Israelis thinking? Why must the free world be jerked around whenever radical Islam decides to make a move? Terrorism works and will continue until the caliphate replaces us – unless the West grows a spine, which appears unlikely.

Hamas could have been defeated, ending the recurring attacks and allowing the Palestinian Authority to reclaim control of Gaza. What possibilities were lost?

Netanyahu and Gantz wanted victory. Biden stopped them? Did he threaten to not resupply Israel’s munitions, as the US has done in the past?

Well, that’s water under the bridge. Western contractors and Palestinian leaders will get rich rebuilding Gaza – terror tunnels and all – at the expense of European and American taxpayers. The antisemitic United Nations and the American left are sated for the moment.

In “A military operation like none in history” (May 21), Yaakov Katz asks: “After 16 years of doing it one way, is it not time to try something else? “

It is. 

Israel UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan addressed the UN General Assembly on Thursday (May 20) and said, “Let me remind you of what many of you, unfortunately, ignore: Hamas is an internationally designated jihadi terrorist organization that has fired more than 4,000 rockets at Israeli cities over the last 11 days. 

Right now, as I speak to you, Israeli civilians are running to find shelter from Hamas’s indiscriminate attacks.

“Here is a quote from the Hamas charter: ‘Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.’ And it continues: ‘The Day of Judgement will not come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.”

About time! Why did it take Israelis 14 years of Hamas rocket attacks before they finally quoted the Hamas Charter at the UN? Are we going to wait another decade before they draw attention to the Jihad in Palestinian Islamic Jihad?

So to try something else would be to educate the politicians and media in the West about what is really going on, so that next time Israel is not under unnecessary constraint due to their cluelessness. Bernie Sanders, for instance, introduced a resolution blocking $735 million weapons sale to Israel. Proof that Lenin, a century after his death, can still create useful idiots. 

Regarding “Biden: ME must recognize Israel as a Jewish state” (May 23), it should be remembered when Yasser Arafat’s lair was raided, financial records seized revealed that the PA had paid millions of dollars directly or indirectly to the murderers of over 1,000 Jews during the Second Intifada. 

Paying millions to murder innocent Jews is totally consistent with thee PLO Charter, the enabling document of the PA. Those PLO Charter clauses have never been revoked as per Article 33 of the Charter, which requires a ²⁄3 vote at a meeting specifically called to revoke the annihilation of the Jews clauses. Such a meeting has never occurred. 

Accordingly, every member of the PA is bound by the annihilation of the Jews clauses of the Charter. Whenever a member of the PA talks of “peace” with Israel, it is merely posturing.

The PLO Charter, which controls the PA, mandates the murder of every Jew in Israel. Article 7 of the Hamas Charter mandates the murder of every Jew on earth. 

For the Jews of Israel there is no difference between the two.

After watching the Eurovision contest and reading the May 23 Jerusalem Post, I can seriously analyze the current stupid world situation!

The song contest scoring was going well with the experts putting real songs in the leading places. Until the public votes started to arrive, Italy was way down the ladder – then suddenly the public vote overwelmingly placed them as the winners! Verdi & Pavarotti would be shocked; to consider this a song, is a travesty! It was in a heavy metal style with non-understandable language, tattooed and pierced performers of the sort who make fortunes out of their equally non-educated fans! 

Then I read that US President Joe Biden is negotiating a new accord with Iran while supporting Israel’s right to exist and insisting on a “two-state” solution. At the same time Gazan leader Ismail Haniyeh is thanking Iran for its help in “winning” the war against Israel. Their rhetoric is “Death to the Jews and to the USA, the big and small satanic enemies.”

People in general hate the ones perceived to be strong and side with the weak, with no regard to hate campaigns! Black Lives Matter (BLM) is idolized but Jews are a disposable commodity!