April 20: Collective thanks

Apparently MK Michal Roisin never had a religious education and therefore doesn’t comprehend the importance of the Temple Mount in Jewish life.

By JERUSALEM POST READERS
Letters 370 (photo credit: REUTERS/Handout )
Letters 370
(photo credit: REUTERS/Handout )
Sir, – Collective Israel can thank the Almighty that MK Michal Roisin (Meretz) is in the minority in the Knesset (“New Knesset Interior C’tee head says Jews should be able to pray at Temple Mount,” April 18).
Apparently she never had a religious education and therefore doesn’t comprehend the importance of the Temple Mount in Jewish life.
Only the word “absurd” can describe the fact that Moshe Dayan, at the end of the Six Day War, allowed the Wakf Muslim religious trust to have control of Judaism’s holiest site. If Interior Committee chairwoman Miri Regev’s stated goal of working to allow Jews to pray at their holiest site will sabotage the peace process, then Roisin doesn’t know her front from her back. She still lives with the false notion that by entering the mount, Ariel Sharon touched off the second intifada (so she doesn’t know her history either).
Why should Jews be held hostage by bowing to false statements that the mount is holy to Muslims? As everyone knows, Jerusalem isn’t holy to Muslims; one can see many of them on the mount bowing toward Mecca when it comes time for them to pray. Members of no other religion have a right to claim our holiest site as theirs.
Further, Roisin states that allowing Jews to pray on the Temple Mount could adversely affect the peace process. I ask: What peace process? If there were going to be two states for two people – heaven forbid – why would praying on the Temple Mount prevent such an arrangement? What’s the connection? URI HIRSCH Netanya Job discrimination Sir, – I was surprised to read that Health Minister Yael German “put a notice on Facebook...
saying she was seeking a woman driver” (“Health minister picks first female chauffeur,” News in Brief, April 18). In Israel, discrimination in the job market on the basis of race, religion or gender is illegal.
YONATAN SILVER Jerusalem
Building rights
Sir, – In his letter denying Israel the right to build homes for Jews in “Arab east Jerusalem,” reader James Adler (“Enough already, April 17) provides a classic example of nonsequitur by claiming that “France has the right to build homes for the French in Paris, but not in Madrid, Amsterdam or Brussels.” Since when did France legally possess any land in these cities in neighboring countries? The nation of Israel had possession of east Jerusalem even 3,000 years ago. Moreover, prior to the annexation of east Jerusalem after the Six Day War, it was regarded as part of Jordan, and Jordanians built homes there. Was that acceptable to Adler? MONTY M. ZION Tel Mond Sir, – Why is our government so reticent about the San Remo conference of 1920? The League of Nations accepted the borders set by that convention. Then on April 18, 1946, when the League of Nations was dissolved, everything was transferred to the United Nations, and the international community reaffirmed the legality of this international accord.
Every proposition put forth by the UN to divide this pocket handkerchief of land between the Jews and the Arabs was flatly rejected by the Arabs. (And let us not forget the three no’s of Khartoum: no negotiations with Israel, no recognition and no peace.) So the status quo remains, and all the land between the river and the sea remains the property of the Jewish state. This does not preclude a two-state solution, but our security must come first.EDMUND JONAH Rishon Lezion
Sir, – Israel is not allowed to build in Amman because that city is not in Israel. But Israel, being a sovereign state, is allowed to build wherever it pleases within the country.
Jerusalem is the united and eternal capital of Israel, and our government – and only our government – will decide where we can build.
When somebody comes to conquer you, you have the right to defend yourself and be referred to as the defender, not conqueror.VICKY SCHER Jerusalem
Sir, – Why should a humorous Dry Bones cartoon published last January still enrage anyone? Perhaps it is because the stark simplicity of the cartoon exposes the cant and hypocrisy that surround criticism of Israel’s settlement program? Although happy to see France build in Corsica, Great Britain invest in the Falkland Islands, and Turkey sell homes in North Cyprus, James Adler has only words of criticism for Israel.
The Dry Bones cartoon infuriates him precisely because its message – that Israel has a legal and moral right to build in Judea and Samaria – is both true and convincing.
H.B. MITCHELL Mazkeret Batya Independence 65
Sir, – President Shimon Peres says he does not regret the Oslo Accords (“A vision for a start-up nation,” Independence Day 65 supplement, April 15).
Let us first affirm that Peres made some major contributions to the health and welfare of our state, not the least of which was the significant role he played in helping establish Israel as a nuclear power.
That said, it is equally intolerable to permit him to portray the Oslo Accords as anything other than an unmitigated disaster imposed on us, particularly through the process of bribing a pair of Knesset members to vote in favor. As a consequence, the PLO was brought to this area from its far-off den in North Africa, and its minions were armed with weapons provided by us. The consequences of those actions resulted in the deaths of thousands of our best and brightest.
Rather than continuing to maintain that the accords were worthwhile, Peres owes all of us an apology for a dreadful mistake undertaken on his initiative with massively disastrous results.
Yes, I am bitter.MARCHAL KAPLAN Jerusalem
Sir, – I was astounded by your Independence Day 65 supplement.
It seemed to be as much about the Nakba, or catastrophe, as the Arabs refer to it, as about the declaration of a modern Jewish State.
A good number of the pictures seemed inappropriate for Independence Day. Immediately, on page 5, we have a picture of graffiti reading “A good Arab is a dead Arab.” On page 6 there is a photo of an Arab family being evicted; on page 7 a picture shows a Palestinian using a slingshot during “a protest” in Silwan; and on page 15 we have the unnecessary photo of the terrorist Yasser Arafat – another hero of Jewish independence, I presume.
The strangest article, however, was “Coastal wanderings.” A photo shows graves from the former Armenian “Sheikh Breik village,” and the article does tell us that the supposed village was not destroyed in 1947 but existed from 1920-1981, consisting of only a few dozen people, the actual owner of the land having fled in 1948. I presume the author is aware of Palestinian claims that the village was the site of the first “massacre” by Jews in 1947.
I expected more from The Jerusalem Post on Independence Day. I was given a political apologetic for Jews having their own state instead of Jewish pride in the building of that state.
AL GOLDBERG Haifa
Sir, – In your otherwise excellent Independence Day supplement, the captions for pictures were reversed. The photo on page 24 is of “the eco-conscious Amphorae Winery,” and the photo on page 26 shows “the unexcavated Cafarlet Castle near Habonim.”
RUTH RIGBI Jerusalem