June 19: Further reader reactions to missing yeshiva students

The police personnel involved should be charged with criminal negligence. In the general handling crime and many other situations, police should be taught the importance and responsibility that their job entails.

By JERUSALEM POST READERS

JUNE 18, 2014 21:50

Letters 370 (photo credit: REUTERS/Handout ) — Letters 370

(photo credit: REUTERS/Handout )

Further reader reactions to missing yeshiva students

Sir, – Israel should cut off all electricity to Gaza until the boys are returned. Let the world scream “Collective punishment!” Who cares? If that doesn’t bring the boys home, cut off the water supply.

That’s the correct action. They only respect strength. Hasn’t our prime minister learned that yet?

JENNY WEIL

Jerusalem

Sir, – Same news, same terror, same rhetoric, same anti-Semites, same breast-beating Jews blaming Jews and the State of Israel, same rewriting of history, same arm-twisting to release terrorists, same UN denigrations for building housing in Jerusalem suburbs while ignoring slaughters in other countries, same world trying to eliminate Israel because it is easy to despise and blame the Jews because they “asked for it.” And same response from the Israeli government.

Isn’t it time to face the facts of history? Isn’t it long overdue to stop being Mr. Nice Guy? To hell with what the international community says. It doesn’t give a damn about Jewish lives. We Jews have survived by fighting and accommodation, not through appeasement and surrender.

The list could go on and on, but this country needs to get its act together if it is to survive.

SONIA GOLDSMITH

Netanya

Sir, – Surely there must be laws issued by the authorities to help avoid another tragedy of this kind.

What would be so bad if a security firm were hired to transport children and others? The security buses would cost the government far less than a major army operation.

Safety first!

S. GOLDBERG

Kiryat Bialik

Sir, – It’s hard to understand why our government expected any message of sympathy from the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton (“Jerusalem miffed at EU silence over kidnapping,” June 17). That gutless wonder makes it her practice to condemn Israel at every opportunity while cozying up to representatives of the world’s most tyrannical regimes.

However, we do have the right to expect some semblance of decency from Balad MK Haneen Zoabi. Not content with berating and threatening her young cousin, Mohammad, for daring to make a pro-Israel video (“Arab MK upset by relative’s public call for return of teens,” June 17), she has the infernal chutzpah to declare that Arabs who kidnap Jewish youngsters are “not terrorists.”

We have put up with Zoabi’s treasonable antics for far too long.

No other civilized country and no other parliament would tolerate such behavior, and she must be expelled from the Knesset without further delay.

GABRIEL A. SIVAN

Jerusalem

Sir, – Without wanting to diminish in the slightest the anguish and trepidation that all Israelis must feel at not knowing the fate of the three missing boys, I have to say that “Festering terrorism” (Editorial, June 17) is not only unhelpful, it distorts the picture, to the detriment of our own ability to deal with the hardships.

Like Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, you are making a number of wildly unsupported claims about Palestinian opinion and motivation. To attribute to the general Palestinian public the feeling that these boys are “subhuman” is not just unwarranted, it is a sign of your total lack of understanding of the dynamics of this conflict. The primary sentiment in the general Palestinian population is to secure the freedom of their people held in Israeli prisons. This is in no way different from the “bring our boys back” movement.

Further, you embark on a diatribe in which you dictate to the Palestinians what form their own society must take. “Palestinians have to eschew violence,” they must “cease supporting political movements... that brutally enforce Shari’a.” In fact, you have no right to dictate to other societies their beliefs, structures or mores. If they choose to live under a regime that enforces Shari’a, it’s their business.

As long as their actions don’t impinge on our own lives they are of no concern to us.

In no small way it is you who are contributing to the “festering,” dysfunctional nature of our relationship and killing any possible chance of a good outcome.

HENRY KAYE

Ashkelon

Sir, – Your June 17 editorial broadly sources Palestinian violence, demonization of Jews and glorification of terrorists. This is fortified inter alia in the columns appearing alongside by Charles Bybelezer (“The peace process hoax”) and Alan Baker (“Palestinians and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child”), and two pages later by Shmuley Boteach (“Obama fiddles while the world burns,” No Holds Barred) and Michael Freund (“Time to topple the Palestinian Authority,” Fundamentally Freund).

But on the same page as Boteach and Freund, David Newman (“Putting life in perspective,” Borderline Views) strangely opines that “the fate of the Palestinians...

is still in our hands” despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary that it is in their hands alone.

Those barbaric hands must return our three young captives safe and sound immediately.

ESTER ZEITLIN

Jerusalem

Sir, – Michael Freund stated it beautifully in his headline: “Time to topple the Palestinian Authority.”

It’s exactly what I’ve been saying for years. Freund said it better and to a much larger audience. Let’s pray the right people are listening.

FRUMA COHEN

Hashmonaim

Sir, – Your editorial “The police’s duty” (June 16) infuriated me.

The police in the case of the kidnapped students are guilty of dereliction of duty. Dereliction of duty by a police officer in a crime that has horrific consequences should lead to a dismissal and court proceedings.

We have taken pride that when a former prime minister, president or other public officials thought they were above the law, they were shown they were not. They were found guilty of their crimes and their betrayal of public trust.

They were guilty of hubris.

The superiors of derelict police officers who try to lessen the severity of their subordinates’ actions and sweep them under the rug are also guilty of hubris and must be taken to task.

R. KATZ

Rehovot

Sir, – Ordinarily, people are held responsible for their actions. If our actions cause damages and/or suffering to others, we are sued, regardless of whether our actions were the result of commission or omission.

Apparently, this is not the case when it comes to policemen or judges. They seem to be above the law.

The Bible, in Deuteronomy, Chapter 21, teaches otherwise: “...and the elders of the town shall declare... our hands did not spill this blood....”

Those precious hours of time might have made it possible to find those boys! It’s clear who is complicit in this horrible crime.

ISAAC SIEGMAN

Beit Shemesh

Sir, – The police personnel involved should be charged with criminal negligence. In the general handling crime and many other situations, police should be taught the importance and responsibility that their job entails.

Let’s just hope we see the boys back very soon.

JOYCE KAHN

Petah Tikva

Sir, – Your article “PM: Our boys were kidnapped by terrorist group” (June 15) says that one of the missing teens is “from the West Bank settlement of Talmon” and that another is “from Nof Ayalon, which straddles the Green Line near Latrun....”

What difference does it make that any of the boys are from close to or over the “Green Line”? They were kidnapped in Gush Etzion, Area C! Do you think the kidnappers knew where they lived? The article appears to blame at least one of the boys for the kidnapping just because his parents chose to live in the so-called territories.

It could have happened to a child from Tel Aviv or Jerusalem as well!

BONNIE WEINBERG

Nof Ayalon