November 27: Absurd principle

Absurd principle

Sir, – Thank you for finally telling it like it is! Your editorial “Supplying Gaza” (November 25) was long overdue. I only hope it is read by those who can make a difference – those who can turn off the free electricity, who can stop sending trucks laden with food and medical supplies, who can wake up to this absurd principle of feeding and helping our enemies on the backs of Israeli citizens.

As a woman who had five grandchildren serving during Operation Pillar of Defense I can only praise your courage. It’s time to stop trying to be charitable at the expense of our citizens and our children.

MEIRA APPLEBAUM
Kochav Yair

Sir, – Your editorial of November 25 points out the anomaly of Israel sustaining its sworn enemies.

As you so aptly comment, it is high time we quit being suckers.

Withdrawing the supply of electric power, telephone and communication services would, of course, result in outcries from so-called human rights organizations, including those in Israel.

What I propose is that the Gazan authorities be given notice that these actions will commence after a nominated period to allow them time to make other arrangements, and that the border between Gaza and Israel then be closed to traffic in both directions.

The naval blockade would end and the Egyptians would be expected to supply all that we withhold, which would include free access to expert medical care.

Of course, Hamas could avoid these actions by ceasing to receive weapons designed to destroy our population and allowing open inspections to ensure that these conditions are fulfilled.

MONTY M. ZION
Tel Mond

Sir, – From one bizarre situation to another! Israel provides water, food, electricity, medical supplies and fuel to Hamas, whose charter states that “Israel will exist only until Islam will obliterate it.” Then, just when Israel has Hamas on the ropes and is in a position to deliver the knock-out blow, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agrees to a cease-fire.

How does one explain this paradox? I would like to think that US President Barack Obama and Netanyahu have agreed that the time has come to neutralize Iran, which continues to provide support to insurgents in Iraq. If the intelligence reports are correct, this operation would need to be done before March or April 2013.

Obama would solidify the United States’s leadership of the free world by activating a massive ordnance penetrator bomb on Iran’s nuclear facilities, with Israel executing its share of the assignment. Hence, I believe that Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman agreed to the present cease-fire so that all necessary efforts and resources would be directed toward crippling the evil axis of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.

SMOKY SIMON
Herzliya Pituah

Sensitive editing, please

Sir, – What anger I felt looking at your front page of November 20! There was a picture of Palestinians evacuating a wounded man. The story (“IDF hits Gaza terrorists hiding in media building”) could have been told without a picture that seemed to say, “Oh, those poor Palestinians.”

Remember the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

As for “No wedding bells in Gaza,” how many Israeli weddings, bar mitzvas and other happy occasions in Sderot were interrupted or cancelled due to incoming rockets from Gaza in recent years? And regarding “The man who keeps Tel Aviv safe from rockets,” the article was very nice, but why was the name and picture of the man who is “keeping millions of residents of the greater Tel Aviv metropolitan area safe from death and destruction” given? We should be protecting him! Even the most despicable criminals’ faces and particulars are no longer revealed in order to protect them.

In time of war, even more than in times of peace, sensitivity in editing should be mandatory.

JOAN LEVI
Jerusalem

Be accommodating

Sir, – Regarding “Dealing with Hamas’s human shield tactics” (November 20), although the recent conflict in Gaza started because of the attack on an army jeep inside Israel and after hundreds of rockets had been fired, Hamas stated that the death of Ahmed Jabari had been the cause.

At the same time, Hamas lawmaker Fathi Hamed said to Israelis – parroting that other staunch human rights activist, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah – “We (the Arabs) desire death more than you (the Jews) desire life.”

It is noticeable that when Arab terrorist leaders make such remarks they try to make sure it is not they or their families who go prematurely to paradise, but the poor deluded souls who believe in them. These leaders are rarely seen, but skulk in hidden bunkers among the so-called innocent civilians.

I am sure that if Hassan Hamed were really serious, he could be accommodated.

CYRIL ATKINS
Beit Shemesh

Words better said

Sir, – I begin this letter with a great deal of trepidation. It is essentially being written in reaction to statements made by two men, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, both saintly Torah giants for whom I have the utmost esteem and reverence.

I feel compelled to respectfully differ with their joint response when asked during Operation Pillar of Defense whether people from the South who were under bombardment should leave their homes. Both answered in the affirmative, saying these people should go to Bnei Brak, where they themselves reside. In a place where Torah is studied, they said, damage cannot be inflicted (“Rabbi Ovadia Yosef: May our enemies fall by the sword before our soldiers,” November 16).

Unfortunately, their explicit promise of safety cannot find support in the historical record – the martyrdom of Rabbi Akiva and the plague that decimated thousands of his pupils; the annihilation of entire Torah communities by the Crusaders; and the Holocaust’s extermination of Europe’s greatest Torah centers together with six million of our brethren.

I am troubled as well by the obvious impracticality of the suggestion.

Is the city of Bnei Brak in fact able or willing to accommodate an influx of a large group of outsiders? Most troubling, however, is the negative and divisive implications in the worthy rabbis’ advice (perhaps unintentional) that separated those who might choose to make the move and the many left to their fate.

Would it not be far more appropriate for the rabbis to have issued a declaration that all of Israel is worthy of the Almighty’s favorable countenance, without distinction of location? Should they not have been among the first to acknowledge with pride that in fact there is more Torah learning by more Torah learners in the State of Israel today than in any other period of Jewish history? Finally, should rabbinical leadership not be offering a message of encouragement and solace to the myriad of people whose lives and well-being have been shattered by years of constant terrorist violence? Should they not be the leaders who joyfully point to the daily miracles that we witness in our relatively few casualties, and the miracles being performed through the Iron Dome defense system? Should they not be involved with urging and beseeching the general populace to listen to and obey the safety instructions of the Homefront Command? And should they not be praying for and thanking the Creator for his care for all those who participate in the defense of our beleaguered country, and joyfully and publicly proclaim that the “Guardian of Israel neither slumbers or sleeps?”

ZEV CHAMUDOT
Petah Tikva