And the Arabs and Palestinians didn’t refuse.
They tried to exterminate us, slaughter us, push us into the sea, eliminate us. This doesn’t have any consequences? We have to allow them to start over? Give them a free pass? Maybe this time they will succeed in their intentions, showing the world that there isn’t any consequence for trying to eliminate the Jewish people. If at first you don’t succeed try, try again.
Why are they the only people in the world who are not responsible for their actions? Whatever they do, they have to be given a free pass?SHLOMO BAR-MEIR Tel AvivICC and ‘Palestine’ Regarding “International Criminal Court welcomes ‘State of Palestine’” (April 2), the Palestinian Authority formally joined the International Criminal Court (ICC) with the expectation that the court would pursue cases against Israelis. However, the legal structure of the court and the long list of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Hamas indicate that the prosecution of Hamas officials is far more the likely outcome.
United States Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote: “I always say, as you know, that if my fellow citizens want to go to Hell, I will help them.” Here’s to the ICC offering Hamas all the help in the world.
DAVID BENGER New YorkIt was with great interest that I read “Can the ICC go after settlements as war crimes?” (Analysis, April 1), and the comments of the various legal and political experts on the subject. I was quite surprised that nowhere in the article was the 1922 Mandate for Palestine mentioned.
This momentous document gave Jews the right of close settlement in all of Mandatory Palestine, which stretched at least from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. Jews were designated as the sovereign over this territory, with the understanding that the civil and religious (not political) rights of other inhabitants of the land were to be respected.
No international or other body has formally revoked or nullified the mandate. Why is it that there are no voices in this country who can effectively argue the case for legitimate Jewish settlement in all of the West Bank, when this right was granted nearly a century ago and never has been abrogated since?SEYMOUR SHAPIRO NetanyaAgudat Efrat’s role I read with interest Judy Siegel’s “Legal abortion rate declining in Israel” (April 1). I was, however, dismayed that mention was not made of Agudat Efrat and its founder, Dr. Eli Schussheim, who was instrumental in helping avoid abortions over the past 35 years by providing support and assistance to women who would prefer not to have one – something that has resulted in over 61,000 live births over these years.
Agudat Efrat is the only organization in Israel providing this help. I have been informed that, amazingly, that there has never been one woman among these mothers who regrets avoiding a readily available abortion.
BRENDA MOSCHYTZ JerusalemGood news Regarding “Chinese here to advance ‘Water City’ project” (March 31), there is indeed good news to be appreciated. China and Israel are working together to succeed in water control! Building a new city in China will be a major achievement, and Israel is more than willing to help. When China respects Israel sufficiently, it will stand by it politically.
A nation that is as strong and technologically proficient as Israel will be a fitting match for China’s development plans. May this coming summer herald many commercial ventures and closer ties as China comes to understand Iran and its plans for world domination.
TOBY WILLIG JerusalemIndiana bill With regard to “Thousands march in Indiana to protest law seen as targeting gays” (March 30), I would like to see a follow- up news item that looks solely at the “business” of being a rabbi there.
Rabbis in Indiana, as elsewhere, are vested with the legal power to marry couples. As you know, those who follow Halacha must discriminate among applicants.
Should these rabbis have to perform marriages between Jews and non-Jews because a law states they cannot refuse to serve anyone who approaches them for a service they are marketing? Should a wedding couple be allowed to hire a non-kosher caterer to use a rented synagogue hall? After all, if a synagogue is a non-profit corporation, all taxpayers are presumed to have the right to employment and access.
If there were no protections under religious freedom laws, synagogues might have to give up their non-profit status, and rabbis would have to advise couples to hold a second ceremony before a judge.
BARBARA RUBIN JerusalemIndiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act is clearly discriminatory and should never have been put forth. No matter how state legislators try to tweak it, it’s still a license for businesses to turn away those they deem undesirable.
No matter how much the proponents of this ugly, divisive bill would have us believe it’s for our own good and within the laws of our constitution, it is not in anyone’s interest, except for the haters.
This nation needs a reminder to bring us back to our senses.
Just remember: United we stand, divided we fall!HERBERT W. STARK Mooresville, North CarolinaRight on target Michael Freund has done it again. He is so on target (“Happy Land of Israel Day!” Fundamentally Freund, March 30).
Why don’t we celebrate the tenth of Nisan as Land of Israel Day? It’s an everlasting day of remembrance for the date when we Jews entered the promised land, Israel, 3,327 years ago.
We should certainly celebrate this date, and with great joy – with trumpets and shofars blasting away. We should invite all heads of state to celebrate with us and let us live in peace in the place that God gave to us, and where we, the Jews, belong.
REIZL FINK JerusalemGrowing malevolence In June 2014, The Jerusalem Post reported that Rev. Páraic Réamonn was to take control at St. Andrew’s Church in Jerusalem.
Alarms were sounded that he might use his new pulpit as a platform for furtherance of views on Israel in general, and on Jews in particular, that many would find unpleasant. Within a matter of days of his arrival in October, the reverend was blogging his thinly veiled distaste for the Jewish state on the Church of Scotland website, continuing almost monthly and growing in malevolence.
In his latest outburst, Réamonn describes “the story of the Zionists and the state they created, sustained and extended by force” as “the story also of those they continue to displace and dispossess.” He advises: “This will never be a land of promise until Israeli Jews learn how to share it with their neighbors.”
It’s troubling that, regularly throughout history, some turbulent cleric or other has felt the need to warn the Jews of their inability to live among others – even in their historic homeland!STANLEY GROSSMAN GlasgowThe writer is a member of Scottish Friends of Israel.