January 25: Strong win
By JERUSALEM POST READERS
01/24/2013 21:51
When will the media stop calling this election a tie? Out of 120 seats in the Knesset, 60 were won by the Right and 48 were won by the Left.
Letters Photo: REUTERS/Handout
Strong win
Sir, – When will the media stop calling this election a tie? Out of
120 seats in the Knesset, 60 were won by the Right and 48 were won by the Left
(“Netanyahu, Lapid begin effort to form coalition,” January 24). The other 12
were won by the Arabs, who cannot be classified as Left or Right because they
represent a different “country.”
So let us tell the world that the Right
won the election very strongly, 60 to 48.
HARRY RESNICK
Ginot Shomron
Gimpel gaffe?
Sir, – With regard to “Livni calls to disqualify US-born candidate
for talking about Temple Mount being blown up” (January 20), it is not racism
but realism that causes me to identify Islam with blackmail, piracy, torture,
limb-lopping and suicide bombing.
It is not just the terrorists who are
culpable – it is also their religious leaders, who encourage the terrorists to
see themselves as “martyrs.”
The fact that one of Islam’s religious
symbols, the Dome of the Rock, dominates the skyline of Jerusalem is most
disturbing to many Jews and Christians.
While Bayit Yehudi candidate
Jeremy Gimpel’s suggestion was hopelessly impolitic, morally he is 100 percent
right. Is it not time, therefore, to start the process of argument that might
result in its dismantling, the numbered sections to be given to Saudi Arabia to
build somewhere else?
DAVID LEE
London
Sir, – Early in the election campaign, a
room full of people sat mesmerized as the foundations of Bayit Yehudi were
spread before us, mainly by Jeremy Gimpel.
His sincerity, erudition and
clarity of purpose convinced many of us, largely unfamiliar with the party’s
platform, that we had hope, and that our beloved land would be in good
hands.
Although Gimpel did not make it into the Knesset, his invaluable
work will doubtless continue and enrich us in a future Knesset.
PESSY
KRAUSZ
Jerusalem
Contentious bones
Sir, – Dry Bones does it again (“Election
tampering,” January 18)! And it is propitiously placed on the page facing Martin
Sherman’s and Barry Shaw’s columns (“Liar,” Into the Fray; “Israeli diplomatic
incompetence,” Original Thinking).
US President Barack Obama’s second
term started when he continued ill-advising Israel and our capable prime
minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, on how to govern our country, the only democracy
in the Middle East. He would do better to concentrate on improving the poor
state of affairs in his own country.
RENIE HIRSCH
Netanya
Sir, – The Dry
Bones cartoon of January 4 (“Best wishes”) brilliantly exaggerated the – sadly,
sometimes real – double standards against Israel that are used to scare voters
to the Right.
The nice fellow says: “My wish list for 2013... that
Syria not gas its citizens, that Egypt does not go Islamist, that Iran does not
get the bomb.”
And then the zinger: “And that the world stops worrying
about the Jewish state building homes for Jews....”
Nobody wants Egypt to
go Islamist, or Iran to get a bomb, or Syria to gas its citizens. The West has
aid leverage with Egypt, and sanctions and military options against Syria and
Iran. Far from being their ally, it sees itself an enemy of Iran and Syria, as
it did against Libya.
Israel is the opposite – rightly seen as a close
friend, an economic and military ally, and a deserving aid partner.
There
is no double standard here. But the world does worry about a state that builds
outside its borders in aggravation of an already grave international conflict.
Thankfully, there is no double standard here, either.
It is tragic that
the Right tries – and even more before elections – to inflame voters with
confused and selfdestructive anger against the world.
JAMES ADLER
Cambridge, Massachusetts