Major media and nonprofits need to control their political bias.
By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: REUTERS)Threatening US JewsI don’t know about you, but I find it noteworthy and ironic that Juan Thompson, arrested in connection with some of the bomb threats made in recent weeks against Jewish institutions in the United States (“FBI arrests ‘copycat’ of threats to Jewish centers,” March 5) is black, anti-white, anti- Trump, a left-winger and a former journalist.I say this because over the past year, major media outlets and nonprofits (including the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center) have focused on the danger from the Right, and have been relatively silent about the danger from the Left. They also continue to imply that the bomb threats are coming from supporters of President Donald Trump, not realizing that they could also be part of a dirty-tricks campaign to discredit the Trump presidency.Major media and nonprofits need to control their political bias.BOB SCHNEIDERCincinnati, OhioWith regard to “US reps say federal response needed to stop Jew-hatred” (March 3), we have much to be grateful for here in Israel. The United States is going through one of its most difficult periods in trying to cope with a rise in antisemitism all over the country, while here, we have to cope only with our differences with regard to politics in the context of the last war.The Jews in the US are now turning to the administration of President Donald Trump and begging him to set up a mechanism that would ameliorate many cases of physical and emotional outbursts of violence against them. Of course, organizations that have dealt with anti-Jewish hatred, such as the ADL, the American Jewish Committee and the American section of the World Jewish Congress, have launched campaigns.But where were these organizations previously? They were not acting on behalf of their constituencies, being too busy dealing with matters outside the world of protecting Jews. They did not work on campuses or with presidents of universities, and certainly not in high schools or even elementary schools. The innovative teacher who had pupils bring in six million paper clips did more to teach what happened to Jews during the Holocaust than did all these organizations, with their millions- of-dollar budgets.Jews in the US need protection more than ever. They also need to feel that Israel is strong and truly able to be concerned with the fate of Jews all over the world.THELMA SUSSWEINJerusalemThere may have been extraneous political reasons for opposition leader Isaac Herzog’s warnings to prepare for an American aliya, but it wasn’t because of “a fundamental misunderstanding of the deep ties connecting American Jews to the ‘Goldene Medina’” (“Trump’s apologists,” Editorial, March 3).The Jerusalem Post’s tepid attitude again fails the public. The far greater, deeper reason for aliya is not this or that constellation of social conditions in one country or another; it is simply that the exile was terminated following the Second World War (which meant Holocaust for the Jew).The exile is terminated metaphysically, prophetically and judicially.It is over. After it, there has ensued a period of grace giving the Jews time to consider this and accept it. But this is also circumscribed by human events working externally to force Jews to understand.Human upheavals such as happened in post-war Poland continued in Russia and were exacerbated in Argentina, Chile and recently in Venezuela. They targeted Jews or their social environments, causing some to choose Israel and not another tiresome flight pattern.You would be serving the public in a far better way by informing it not that “it can’t happen here,” but that “it can happen here.”PAUL RABOFFJerusalem Pity indeedReading Jessica Crispin’s “What to ask instead of ‘are you a feminist?’” (Comment & Features, March 5) brings to mind that oft-quoted 1887 statement by the British Liberal politician Sir William Harcourt: “We are all socialists now.” Harcourt was reflecting the view that, irrespective of one’s political affiliation, surely all believe in the duty of politics to ensure basic social rights to all.Leaving aside the almost certainty that Harcourt’s “all” did not include women, perhaps we have reached a point where we are all feminist in as much as we all surely believe in a woman’s right to equality of opportunity, earnings and legal and bodily autonomy.All except, presumably, our notso- esteemed rabbis, who will probably be ignoring Rachel Levmore’s appeal in the same issue (“A plea from Jerusalem to the world’s Orthodox rabbis”) to once and for all solve the problem of agunot, “chained woman” whose husbands refuse to grant them a religious divorce.Pity indeed.ELLIE MORRISAseretA two-ferRegarding “Israel still lacks optimal solution to tunnel threat” (March 1), just in time for Purim spiels, trucks filled with ammonia from Haifa’s storage containers should pour their loads into the Gaza tunnels. That should solve two of Israel’s problems in one undertaking.LEAH ISRAELJerusalemVisible justiceIt has been said that it is of fundamental importance that justice not only be done, it should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done (Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart and seventh lord chief justice of England).Justice may or may not have been done in the case of IDF soldier Elor Azaria. However, it most certainly was not manifestly and undoubtedly seen to be done.The judiciary, both military and civil, would do well to adopt Hewart’s principle if it is desirous to regain the confidence of the Israeli public.DAVID STEINHARTPetah TikvaWhose smokescreen?It is time to cap and ridicule every anti-Zionist and antisemite who claims Israel uses antisemitism as a smokescreen for relative peccadilloes in Palestine.Arabs use Palestine as a smokescreen for intra-Arab point-scoring, intra-Arab wars, intra-Arab incitement and subversion, and cynical ploys in a “cold war.” They use Palestine as a smokescreen for at least three million Muslim dead, gaining for themselves occasional press stats, but never moral panic, and rarely UN resolutions. They use Palestine as a smokescreen to gum up the UN and grab exceptional treatment and international tax moneys to turn “refugee” into a hereditary status instead of a status worthy of rehabilitation.Since inventing astrolabes, algebra and windmills, the Arab world has stagnated in bigotry and the fanaticism of the closed mind. Has Islam contributed anything to human knowledge and happiness these past five centuries? Their oil was initially extracted by western engineers.Even if Islam is a religion, it is blatantly imperialist. Muslim Arabs smashed the Roman Empire freetrade zone in the Mediterranean, and Turkish imperialism in the Balkans and Levant is a nasty phantom in their history. The Moguls in India suppressed the Hindus till the accident of the raj created a united Hindu independence. Then we have the ayatollahs currently reviving the Persian Empire.Imperialism is supposed to be over. Time to call a spade a spade.We are all supposed to be equal in rights and opportunities, not discriminated against violently for gender, religion or asking questions about Islam.FRANK ADAMPrestwich, UKAPOLOGY The Jerusalem Post apologizes for reporting that the man who received NIS 4,000 “under the table” (‘Organizations slam Litzman for allowing sale of iQOS heated, smokeless cigarettes’, March 2) was an aide to Health Minister Yaakov Litzman.CORRECTION “There are no alliances in the Middle East” (Terra Incognita, March 6) refers to comments by Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim at the Munich Security Conference.The comments were made by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, not by Yildirim.
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