LETTERS

Readers react to a video and the resulting controversy.

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Your September 12 editorial “Unhelpful messages” takes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to task for his recent video, for allegedly distorting the difference between the need to separate Israelis (Jews) from Palestinians, Egyptians and Arabs in general, and for referring to the “ethnic cleansing” of Jews.
You insist that “Egyptians...
Palestinians and Israelis are unable to live together in peace on the same piece of land,” but you conveniently ignore the fact that “nearly two million Arabs [are] living inside [Israel’s] borders.”
Do you support the dismantling of settlements in parallel with the transfer of all Arabs out of Israel, or agree that Arabs should be able to remain as citizens/ residents, and that Jews should be allowed to keep living in Judea and Samaria even if a peace deal is achieved? It is disingenuous to suggest that Jews or Israelis cannot live alongside Egyptians or Palestinians, but Arabs can and should live alongside Israelis. This is a double standard that we should not expect from a paper of record such as The Jerusalem Post.
STEVE M. SOLOMON Efrat
I disagree with your editorial. It says that all Jewish settlements must be removed if the two-state solution is to be realized because Jews and Arabs cannot get along. The fact is that many Jews get along quite well with Arabs and Muslims.
A few years ago, there were some Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria who were willing to become part of a future Palestinian state if they could remain in their homes. Yet when this was proposed, the reaction of Palestinian leaders was that they did not want Jews in their state at all.
Such a reaction reaffirms what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said about the fact that the Palestinians want their state to be judenrein.
JOSHUA J. ADLER Jerusalem
The second section of your editorial is terribly misinformed and misleading. You confuse giving away parts of our holy places of residence with ethnic cleansing.
While I know that it is against the Torah to give away any of our God-given land, I understand that there are people out there who are blinded by disillusionment that giving in to more and more terrorist demands will somehow turn these terrorists into law-abiding, decent people.
However, ethnic cleansing is ethnic cleansing.
Having another Arab country that does not allow Jews to live there is exactly what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it. Instead of putting us in ovens, the Arabs simply want to declare their (God forbid) newest country Jew-free from the start.
Wake up and call a spade a spade, and stop being afraid of the anti-Semitic US State Department and United Nations. Why does anyone care so much what others have to say? If the Arabs really wanted peace, they would stop shooting.
YECHIEL AARON Hashmonaim
Aside from promoting the most extreme, leftist viewpoint, your editorial is unbelievably stupid.
First, as usual, you criticize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because his video upset the US. Apparently, the US is so delicate that we are not allowed to upset it.
Now, to the stupid part. You say that throwing Jews out of the Sinai and Gaza Strip was not ethnic cleansing. If it was not, then what is? By every definition, removing people from an area because of their ethnicity is the very essence of ethnic cleansing.
You then state that the reason for two states is because Jews and Palestinians can’t stand to live together. This is more nonsense, as proven by the Arabs who live in Israel and overwhelmingly don’t want to live anywhere else.
Apparently, you believe that we should throw out all 350,000 Jews from Samaria and Judea just for a while, until the Palestinians come to their senses and invite them back. If this is not stupidity, what is? HARRY RESNICK Kfar Saba The State Department is seething about inappropriate terminology from our prime minister (“US seethes over PM’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ video,” September 11). What is inappropriate is the constant use and acknowledgment by Israel of the term “West Bank.”
How can there be anything wrong with Jews building homes in Judea or Samaria? By adopting the terminology of our enemies, we have disastrously weakened our case in the eyes of the world.
Nevertheless, Israelis and pro-Zionists are justified in declaring that it’s the Palestinian Arabs who are the occupiers of Judea and Samaria, certainly not us Jews.
The world will just have to get used to Jews living in the Land of Israel.
STEVE KRAMER Alfei Menashe
“Seethes” is good. I like seething.
I seethe at the hundreds of thousand Syrian civilians who have been murdered and uprooted by warring factions in Syria while the world “seethes.” I seethe at the thousands of African citizens in countries whose names I barely recognize who have been slaughtered.
I seethe at the drowning of African children who seek asylum in Europe. I seethe at the terror assaulting the European countries that have indiscriminately opened their doors.
I seethe at the innocent victims of hatred and anti-Semitism worldwide. I seethe at a world that widely condemns the only Middle East democracy. And I seethe when I see the “leader of the free world” go from carrying a big stick to barely lifting a splinter.
Seething is good. However, we have to very careful in choosing what we seethe over.
SARA SMITH Jerusalem The media, inclusive of The Jerusalem Post, has reported on the prime minister’s recent video whereby he used the term “ethnic cleansing.” This was in reference to his assertion that the world’s apparent acquiescence to the Palestinian demand for a future state without Jews is “outrageous.”
Almost immediately, the US State Department, with wounded dignity, condemned the prime minister for his statement. Would this wounded dignity be an implicit admission of its involvement in this mendacious affair? Would this be concomitant with the State Department’s policy of judenrein, whereby it would deny Israel’s right to build in its historic homeland, particularly in its eternal capital, Jerusalem? The canard “Israeli occupation” simply does not wash, particularly when viewed from the legal context of the Geneva Convention.
And thus the State Department reminds me of the Prophet Zephaniah (3:5) when he stated: “But the unjust knoweth no shame.”
Bravo Netanyahu! I. GENDELMAN Jerusalem
US President Barack Obama and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dismiss Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of the label “ethnic cleansing.”
Perhaps they can suggest a different term for the gradual disappearance of Christians in Arab-controlled areas.
ZVI STONE Jerusalem
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s video presents only part of the story.
Syria, Transjordan and Egypt attacked Israel in 1948 and expelled every Jew from the areas they occupied, including Jerusalem and Hebron, where Jews had lived for 3,000 years. In addition, Arab countries expelled 800,000 Jewish citizens. That is ethnic cleansing! By contrast, Arabs who wanted to could and did stay in Israel.
Going to war is a gamble, and when you lose, you cannot demand your money back.
CHARLES OREN Herzliya
CORRECTION There was an error in the shekel/ sterling exchange rate presented in the September 12 Business & Finance section of The Jerusalem Post. It should have been 4.992, and not as stated. We apologize for the error.