By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: REUTERS)Religious self-respect The content of “Women journalists banished behind gender barrier during US veep’s visit to Western Wall” (January 24) is disgustingly one-sided and full of a personal agenda.With a smile on my face, I watched the beautiful and respectful way that US Vice President Mike Pence and his wife entered the Western Wall plaza and prayed to God. Nowhere was there even a hint that either one had a problem following Jewish tradition, with each going to his or her own side for prayer.As usual, only Jews have to complain and sour a beautiful moment in Jewish history with infighting for their own personal agendas.While I am a big fan of US Vice President Mike Pence, he spent only about a minute in private prayer. Karen Pence, however, spent about 10 minutes. Nowhere in the article is there any complaint about all the male journalists who were denied access to the women’s section to cover Mrs. Pence, leaving exclusive access there to the female journalists.Why is it that our friends can respect our religion but our family cannot?YECHIEL AARONHashmonaimUp to us alone Tovah Lazaroff reports that Ma’aleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel and others hope that the Americans will “allow Israel to build on E1....” (“Edelstein to Pence: Help build E1 industrial zone,” January 23).I fervently hope that Israeli leaders aren’t waiting for any foreign leader to “allow” us to build anywhere in our homeland. Support from other governments is welcome, but as a sovereign country, Israel mustn’t put itself in a position of needing another country’s approval for development.STEVE KRAMERKfar SabaJob performance In your January 23 editorial “Smart reconciliation,” you falsely accuse King Abdullah II of Jordan of doing what other Arab autocrats have done: using Israel as a smokescreen to deflect domestic criticism. You also falsely say that the huge Palestinian population in Jordan lacks real representation.Palestinians constitute the political and economic backbone in Jordanian society.They have held and continue to hold top positions in every walk of life, including the royal court, the government and the banking sector. Needless to say, the queen herself is of Palestinian origin.Israel is doing its job brilliantly in alienating its neighbors.Its colonial project, its denial of the Palestinians’ inalienable rights to freedom and liberty, and its disdain for international humanitarian law, human rights and UN security council resolutions enrages Arab masses and further convinces them that Israel is not a partner for a genuine peace deal.MUNJED FARID AL QUTOBLondonThose nudniks With Purim not too far away, your article “Why is it so hard to evade all the nudniks in our lives?” (January 24) reminds me of the classic tale explaining the four archetypal idiots in our midst – all of whom we do well to avoid.The first is the schlemiel, who inevitably spills the soup onto the lap of the second, the schlimazel.(The schlimazel is also the one who must never go into the hat business lest we be born headless.) The third idiot is the tsitser, whose sole contribution to society is to sit watching and then go “Tut, tut!” However the fourth of these specimens of idiocy, and worst by far, is the nudnik.The nudnik is the one who demands to know: “What flavor was the soup?”STANLEY COHENJerusalemThis is another example of useless research in the social sciences.You don’t have to interview 1,100 adults in order to come to the obvious conclusion that the persistence of a problematic relationship is directly proportional to the difficulty in breaking that relationship. But what can you expect from research that is performed by PhuDniks? (A PhuDnik is a nudnik with a PhD.)SAMUEL DERSHOWITZJerusalem
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