May 18: Stockade days

Stockade days

Sir, – I just read “IDF considering Iron Dome deployment in Eilat if rocket fire from Sinai continues” (May 16).

This is just ridiculous.

What has happened to our deterrence? Israel is more and more resembling the old American stockade, withdrawing tighter and tighter to keep out the marauders.

Why do we not go on the offensive and bomb Sinai and Gaza to smithereens, and not hit just a tunnel here and there? Maybe with Kadima’s Shaul Mofaz, the government will have the guts to do something positive, which our defense(less) minister refuses to do.

Ehud Barak is busy destroying Jewish homes and lives, and living the high life.

JUDY PRAGER
Petah Tikva

Annual rite

Sir, – In Ramallah, commemoration of Nakba (catastrophe) Day, the anniversary of Israel’s independence, included 64 seconds of silence, one second for every year since the creation of the state (“My first ‘Nakba Day’ in Ramallah,” Reporter’s Notebook, May 16).

If the Palestinians continue to do this every year, slowly but surely there will be peace and quiet in the Middle East.

YONATAN SILVER
Jerusalem

Haredi-bashing

Sir, – Your headline “Haredi website calls for assassination of Yaron London” (May 14) was egregiously misleading and totally out of the context.

As the body of the article explains, London wrote a piece in Yediot Aharonot calling on the public “to reduce the amount of haredim within Israeli society” rather than making efforts to draft them into the army and draw them into the job market. Can you blame haredim for reacting with vehemence against this incitement? The real villain is London.

If he had written the same advocacy against Arabs, the Left would have reacted with shock and demanded that he be charged with incitement to genocide.

Yes, it’s open season on haredim. Even the socalled liberals among us are silent when it comes to haredi-bashing.

MORDECHAI SPIEGELMAN
Jerusalem

Haredi-bashed

Sir, – In the weeks before Lag Ba’omer, it is said that thousands of Rabbi Akiva’s students died as punishment for lacking basic human respect. We remember them even today.

On Lag Ba’omer this year, a group from my seminary hiked to the burial site of Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai only to find the way walled up, with separate paths for men and women. Our trail had landed us on the men’s side.

We had no choice but to try to quickly pass across the sidewalk to get to the women’s path.

The way was choked with people. Men started shouting at us. Hisses of “pritzut” (immorality) became audible. Something struck my head.
Someone had thrown an uncapped 1.5-liter water bottle, striking me and sloshing several of the girls. Another bottle was thrown.

Instead of the crowd turning on our assailant, the shouts and hisses became louder. Wet, crying and mortified, we retreated.

Perhaps next year the men who attacked and humiliated us will do better to stay home and acquaint themselves with the lesson of Rabbi Akiva’s students. They would benefit from learning Torah instead of hatred.

AYELET WENGER
Jerusalem

Days of hope?

Sir, – Now that Prime Minister Netanyahu has no opposition to speak of, I look forward to seeing him lay out a realistic vision for peace with our neighbors, as well as a new social plan that includes all segments of our society.

STUART PILICHOWSKI
Mevaseret Zion