I was waiting for the author to address the failings in far too many of our highest elected public officials.
By JERUSALEM POST READERSLetters 370(photo credit: REUTERS/Handout )Fading lightSir, – I concur with the idealism and conclusion in Moshe Dann’s op-ed “Isaiah Nation” (Comment and Features, June 26).But as I read this very well-written column, I was waiting for the author to address the failings in far too many of our highest elected public officials.How can we be an “Isaiah Nation” and a “light unto the nations” when our presidents, prime ministers, ministers, MKs and even chief rabbis are under investigation, indicted, thrust into court, and serving time in jail! As an imperfect king is commanded to write a Torah and learn from it, maybe we should demand that these individuals study the Book of Isaiah and literally teach it to high school students and others while they serve in office.HOWARD WEISBAND JerusalemSir, – Moshe Dann’s “Isaiah Nation” is right on the mark, but fails to use the most cogent argument.For those who have actually read The Start-up Nation, the role of both the development of military technology and the training of young scientists and engineers by the IDF played in Israel’s position in the civilian hi-tech world market today is quite clear.This is a direct fulfillment of Isaiah 2:4 – “and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”SAMUEL DERSHOWITZ JerusalemRidiculous demandsSir, – In response to Seth Frantzman’s pitiful and distorted argument, he seems to forget that the laws of this country outlaw gender discrimination in any form (“Haredi higher education,” Terra Incognita, Comment and Features, June 26).The senate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was absolutely correct in its decision to not have an academic association with the Haredi College on egalitarian grounds. Gender segregation in a state-supported institution of higher learning like the Hebrew University is illegal.If haredi men and women are going to demand gender segregation in higher education, they are going to make the same demands when they eventually enter the workforce, making their vocational integration all the more difficult.It is time that haredi men and women learn how to study, work, and co-exist with each other as equal human beings, and not be continuously placing these ridiculous demands on the rest of the citizens of this country.Haredi men and women would be more than welcomed into academia and the workforce if they learned how to conform to modern and accepted social standards of behavior.MITCHELL RADOV Ashdot Ya’acov Phony independenceSir, – Thank you to Michael Freund for his excellent article taking a principled and logical stance against Israel recognizing Kosovo’s phony independence (“Say ‘no’ to Kosovo,” Fundamentally Freund, Comment and Features,” June 25).Israel has nothing to gain from recognizing Kosovo, Europe’s poorest drug-running/organ harvesting province, which is now a safe haven (protected by NATO) for Islamic terrorists and from which the West has suffered significant “blowback.”International law and the concept of national sovereignty have been totally violated there, which is setting a horrible precedent around the world that terrorists can successfully alter the borders of sovereign nations with US support.Does Israel, with its patchwork of many ethnic groups, really want to encourage secessionists and the violation of international law? I presume that Israeli leaders know better than to do that.MICHAEL PRAVICA Henderson, NevadaA positive solutionSir, – The Jerusalem Post reported last week on a migrant who stabbed some people without any reason near the Central Bus Station in South Tel Aviv (“Sudanese migrant stabs six people in south Tel Aviv,” June 24).Tel Aviv is a city full of a mix of different people, including those that drink, steal, stab and rape women. It is unacceptable behavior that every month and every week people murder one another and the government of this country is not able to find a solution for these crimes which keep happening.It is painful and harmful for me to hear on the news about African migrants murdering each other and other people in this country. I have hundreds of Israeli friends who I grew up with. I want to be closer to Israelis to develop the country for our future generation.My relationship with Israelis will never be forgotten. Israelis are great, though there are some people who want to demolish our relationship. But what has happened to me and my friends in Darfur is not a simple history to tell. I and other people from Darfur have graduated with Israeli kids who already know about our situation.I think we have to take into account the traumatizing situation many of the refugees have come from, and try to look for a positive solution.DEREG ABRAMSON Rishon LezionFantasy and charadeSir, – On June 23, The Jerusalem Post ran a story about the statements of a Palestinian official, Tawfik Tirawi (“Haifa, Jaffa and Acre ‘are and will remain’ Palestinian cities”).Tirawi is a member of the Fatah Central Committee, and thus speaks with some degree of authority. His remarks cannot be ignored, when poll after poll show that more than 80% of Palestinians are supportive of the ideology his statements represent.Thus Minister Naftali Bennett’s comments recently that the two-state solution is dead have been vindicated by the facts on the ground. On closer examination, the two-state solution never died, as it was never born, due to the fact that even the concept is so repugnant as to be inadmissable for the Palestinians who are totally incapable of recognizing the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.It should be very interesting to see how US President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu finesse Mr.Tirawi’s statements. Hasn’t the time come to replace fantasy and charade with reality?RICHARD JACOBS HaifaSacred cowSir, – What has happened to our nation’s core values? Who would have ever thought that fellow Jews would be so mean-spirited to deny Israel’s sacred cow – the IDF, the men and women that, at the very least, forgo three precious years of their young lives and, at the most, life and limb – the modicum of a GI bill of rights (“Israel’s GI bill,” Editorial, June 23).The bill would provide preferential hiring in civil service jobs and affirmative action in higher education programs (a far-cry from the US GI bill of rights).The irony is that the segment with the greatest number of draft-dodgers, the organizations representing the well-heeled Left, are the very Jews who are most vocally opposed to this bill. The only logical method to silence this antagonism would be to apply the draft laws equally for all. Phony letters from physicians attesting to “psychological disabilities” used to exclude from military service should be examined with greater scrutiny and only accepted in the rarest of cases.When all Israelis serve, Right, Left, religious and secular, this type of contemptible antagonism to the IDF will fall by the wayside.Then the nation can pay tribute to the sacrifices of all of our children.ROBERT DUBLIN JerusalemEye of the beholder Sir, – In “From Our Archives” on June 23, your historian notes that in support of the cease-fire with the Arabs, the Hagana destroyed the Altalena, bringing in arms for the beleaguered the Irgun. He somehow fails to note that after blowing up the ship, Yitzchak Rabin, at the acme of his “legacy,” and purportedly under orders from David Ben-Gurion, directed his troops on shore to fire on helpless Irgun men in the sea, murdering some 16 of them, in an attempt to kill off their captain, Menahem Begin.Apparently, history, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.MARCHAL KAPLAN Jerusalem
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