Election outcome

There is no limit to the chutzpah of the Left and the politically correct.

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Election outcome
There is no limit to the chutzpah of the Left and the politically correct.A politician warning against leftists and Arabs getting the upper hand in Israel is a nationalist obligation for survival.Too many Israelis want to live in another Europe, with a Switzerland as their neighbor. We know that is not our reality.
We are a nation of great spirit, resilience and talents, but physically we are very small. Look at our neighbors and tell yourself we have nothing to be afraid of.
What would have resulted if the illusionists and liars had won?
DAVID ROTENBERG Jerusalem
The lesson to be learned from this election is that in the holy Land of Israel, a successful campaign cannot be run on the basis of sinat hinam (baseless hatred), which our sages say was the cause of the destruction of the Second Temple.
Sadly, the election loser is continuing in the same vein after his defeat.
YEHUDA OPPENHEIM Jerusalem
Errant polls
Your article “Why were exit polls all so wrong?” (March 19) is hardly newsworthy in Israel, especially as the pollsters seem to make similar erroneous predictions from campaign to campaign.
Former president Shimon Peres is reputed to have once quipped that “Israelis tell the truth to the pollsters and lie in the voting booth.” Perhaps this time we all lied to the pollsters and told the truth in the voting booth.
ALAN (SHLOMO) KOOR Petah Tikva
Obama’s interference
With regard to “J’lem: US ‘reassessment’ threat aims to distract attention from nuke deal” (March 22), certain points should be made when looking at the results of our election.
Of the votes given to parties that crossed the election threshold, 56 percent were for those that apparently will be in a coalition, and 44% were for those that won’t be. In any election, a 12% differential would be considered an overwhelming majority.
No American president in this century has achieved that high a percentage of the popular vote.
Barack Obama received only 53% in 2008, and 51% in 2012. So his reaction to the results here was as predictable as it was unwarranted.
Compare it to his reaction to the results in Iran’s election a few years ago. When there were thousands of Iranians in the streets protesting the outcome, Obama carefully avoided giving them any support, citing non-intervention as his policy.
With the support of the American people, as manifested by congressional suggestions that the US cease funding the United Nations if the world body tries to impose its will on us – which is a good start – we hopefully will survive Obama’s animosity and work on solving our internal problems of poverty, affordable housing and the high cost of living.
If and when there is a Palestinian body that is willing to recognize Israel’s incontestable right to exist as the Jewish homeland, negotiations for a settlement of the dispute can be undertaken.
HAIM SHALOM SNYDER Petah Tikva
I have a simple request for President Barack Obama: Please name one action by the Palestinians that will give us Israelis confidence that they want to live in peace.
The answer is obvious – which makes Obama’s recent outburst against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel all the more childish, especially for a president of the United States.
Have we ever heard him say anything negative to the Palestinians despite all their antagonistic statements and actions? One can come to only one conclusion: His anger supersedes any rational explanation except for his innate hatred of Netanyahu and Israel.
It is time for the Zionist Union’s Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni to come out of their dream world and support Netanyahu against both the libelous charges Obama is making, and the proposed actions against Israel he is suggesting.
VEL WERBLOWSKY Jerusalem
As an Israeli who also holds American citizenship, I deem President Obama a lost cause (his military and monetary largesse notwithstanding).
His unbalanced, one-sided demands are pitiful.
But my real gripe is with those American Jews who, instead of having a stroke over our newly reelected prime minister, should blast their own leader for keeping Jonathan Pollard in prison with a non-ending sentence, when all evidence now publicly known shows it’s already 25 years too long.
NAOMI FEINSTEIN Nordiya It appears that President Obama suffers from a quite common form of color blindness.
He has an inability to distinguish between red and green. That makes him willing to disregard all the red lines when it comes to countries such as Syria and Iran, but he has a different approach to Israel and the arbitrary Green Line.
I would like to express more of an opinion on this but you would probably have to censor it.
YEHUDIT COLLINS Jerusalem
Unexpected praise
 I want to praise something I thought I’d never see at the United Nations (“UN headquarters in New York opens new exhibit on the history of the Jewish people” (Arts & Entertainment, March 22).
The Simon Wiesenthal Center must be strongly commended for mounting a most remarkable exhibit regarding the unbelievable miracle of the Jewish people’s survival and its attachment to the Land of Israel to this day. It is a story that should be told again and again to a world that makes up its own beliefs about our saga.
I suggest that Hillel Houses on US campuses offer trips to see the exhibit. College students of all faiths and denominations should see it, as should all politicians and opinion-makers. I would even like to have it placed permanently in the museum the Wiesenthal Center is building in the heart of Jerusalem.
BATYA KOENIGSBERG Jerusalem
Unaffordable lunacy
 It appears that Avinoam Bar-Yosef (“Best of luck to Rivlin,” Observations, March 20) needs some education about what he refers to as “the ugly campaign against Alisa Doctoroff,” president of UJA-Federation of New York, who in her position has extended funding to the New Israel Fund.
The NIF supports policies of the BDS movement, among other anti-Israel activities on US campuses.
Therefore, Jews in New York are supporting organizations whose aim is the destruction of Israel (though these groups would certainly deny it and instead claim they were only aiming to improve it).
Mr. Bar-Yosef calls the effort to stop this insanity an “ugly campaign.”
He and Ms. Doctoroff are examples of what the late British writer Malcolm Muggeridge wrote about in his essay “The Great Liberal Death Wish.”
The Jewish people can’t afford such lunacy. Responsible people with their eyes wide open should speak out against this nonsense.
MONA BRAFMAN Efrat
Haredi draft
With the elections over, Israel must continue the discussion of haredim in the military.
It is no secret that most top IDF officers do not want or feel the need for haredim in the army, and are loathe to accommodate their religious needs. In reality, not every IDF facility has sufficient kashrut supervision, and we all remember the controversy when soldiers from yeshiva programs were put in jail for walking out of a performance where women were singing.
Haredi parents devote themselves to raising sons in an atmosphere of holiness and purity, believing that they are the “religious army,” defending Israel through Torah study. It makes sense that the IDF make some serious changes before requiring these young men to enlist.
LEAH URSO Modi’in