Out with Zoabi
Sir, – With regard to “Panel bars Zoabi from Knesset election”
(December 20), we were informed in a previous frontpage Post article (“Zoabi: If
Balad’s banned, Arabs won’t vote,” December 9) that MK Haneen Zoabi has a first
degree in philosophy and a second degree in communications. But it quickly
becomes quite apparent that despite her advanced education, she lacks the
ability to relate to the need for accuracy or truth with any degree of
sanctity.
While Zoabi unhesitatingly attacks Israel with the obscene
charge of racism, she blithely chooses to ignore the malicious and patent
absurdity of the charge, based on the evidence of the opportunities afforded to
her by both the democratic State of Israel and its liberal and accepting
society.
She received her higher education from two of Israel’s important
universities and was democratically elected along with several Arab colleagues
to serve in Israel’s parliament.
These facts, it is worth noting, are in
clear contrast to the existing realities in all of Israel’s nondemocratic
neighbors.
What, however, makes Zoabi’s behavior more despicable is her
joining the May 2010 protest flotilla aimed at breaching Israel’s security
blockade of the Gaza Strip with the purpose of showing support for and providing
encouragement to its terrorist Hamas government.
Zoabi dismisses this
fact on the basis of the presence of parliamentarians from other
countries.
Of course, they were from countries with clear anti-Israel
agendas.
Therefore, it does not at all provide her with an excuse for her
behavior, but rather makes it all the more contemptible.
As a serving
member of Israel’s parliament, joining in a clearly anti-Israel effort in
support of those who consistently call for armed conflict with Israel with the
goal of our destruction, was in fact an act of treason and should minimally
exclude the possibility for her reelection.
ZEV CHAMUDOT
Petah Tikva
More
honesty, please
Sir, – Reader Hillel Goldberg (“Building plans,” Letters,
December 20) asks: “Whom do the Berliners, Londoners, Muscovites, Parisians,
Washingtonians and other ‘friends’ ask for permission to build in their cities?”
The Right argues that east Jerusalem and the West Bank aren’t occupied; rather,
they’re disputed. But even if they are “only” disputed, this is not true of
Berlin, London, Moscow, Paris or Washington.
Rightist rhetoric makes it
seem like Israel isn’t in the middle of a giant conflict, including one that’s
over land. Why isn’t there more honesty?
JAMES ADLER
Cambridge, Massachusetts
There’s life on Mars
Sir, – Reader Robert Steiner from North Carolina asks us,
“What do you want?” (Letters, December 19). Before he landed in North Carolina,
did he come from Mars? Permit me to repeat some of his questions and statements:
1. What if Hamas... recognized the permanent State of Israel? 2. What if the
Palestinians gave Israel all their weapons? 3. You should tell the Palestinians
what they would get for such an action. Perhaps the response would convince them
to actually lay down their arms.
Even a Martian who has had some contact
with Mother Earth wouldn’t be quite that naive.
NAOMI FEINSTEIN
Nordiya
Sir, – Memo to Robert Steiner: You raise two what-ifs. You’ve obviously been
away for quite a long time, so when you return from Mars try to arrange a
stopover in Israel. We ought to have a chat.
You also ask what Israel
would do if your what-ifs happen.
Funny, because in the same issue of
this newspaper (“Poll finds majority of Israelis want a twostate solution”) it
was reported that over two-thirds of Israelis favor a demilitarized state of
Palestine side by side with the State of Israel.
From everything we see,
hear and read in Israel, Hamas isn’t about to recognize Israel anytime soon, nor
are the Palestinians going to give us all their weapons. We’ve come to take that
for granted.
So we need to talk. Let me know when you’re coming. The
coffee’s on me.
GERALD FLANZBAUM
Givat Olga
Unjustified dismay
Sir, –
Susan Hattis Rolef (“Is Israeli diplomacy an election propaganda tool?,” Think
About It, December 17) writes: “It is said that the Likud-Beytenu’s American
elections advisor, Arthur Finkelstein, reached the conclusion that his clients
can maximize their electoral support inter alia by means of an aggressive ‘the
world is against us,’ ‘their attitude toward us today is the same as their
attitude towards the Jews during the Holocaust’ campaign.”
Rolef goes on
to ridicule Prime Minister Netanyahu and former foreign minister Liberman for
all the steps they took to counter the usual unbalanced statements we have
become accustomed to hearing from our so-called friends, who really know better
than we do as to how to run our country and lives.
Her dismay at how
Liberman reacted toward the EU’s opposition to Israeli construction in the
settlements is typical of her leftist outlook, where it is better to cower
before our adversaries, and also friends, without making too much of a fuss.
After all, we are so indebted to those countries, which, as Liberman so rightly
asserted, are soft with Hamas, just as they left Jews to die in the
concentration camps.
I say to Rolef it is an undeniable fact that the
world is against us.
No country should be in a position to tell us, a
sovereign state, where we can and cannot build homes. This is a result of
weakness on our part. It is also ridiculous that we must wait to hear that we
have a right to protect ourselves (although only so long as we don’t harm too
many terrorists). This is another sign of our weakness.
Rolef writes that
the Europeans and Americans never accepted the legitimacy of Israel’s settlement
activities in what they regard as occupied territories because there is no
existential need for them. Our settlement activity – as well as being an
existential need – is first and foremost because this is our land.
We
need people who are not afraid to speak out and tell it like it is no matter
whom it might upset. We must put ourselves first, now and always, never again to
be at the mercy of others.
YENTEL JACOBS
Netanya
Better bodyguards
Sir, –
Everyone knows that the Palestinian right of return would have the same effect
on Israel as an Iranian nuclear bomb. In the past, had Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to give up this demand, he would be dead the next
day. Today, though, he is feted as a hero all over the Arab world.
If now
he would publicly renounce this demand in return for Israel giving up most of
the settlements, including border changes, the Arab world would accept it. Not
only the Arab world – with this obstacle removed the whole world would put
pressure on Israel.
Here is a chance for two Nobel Prizes (although there
would be a need for better bodyguards than Anwar Sadat had).
ANDREAS
MEYER
Kfar Havradim
Dutch treat
Sir, – I am very sorry that my government didn’t
openly support your people in the vote on the Palestinians’ status at the UN. I
really regret this.
I would like to give you encouragement by sharing
that more and more people in Holland stand with Israel and care for its people
dearly. I am sorry to say that there are also people who don’t.
Please be
encouraged by this message and the knowledge that lots of people in the
Netherlands stand with Israel.
We are praying for you!
PETER PELLEMANS
Weert, Netherlands
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