Readers respond to the latest Jerusalem post articles.
By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: REUTERS)Sarid on BennettThe word “disgust” is appropriate to describe my reaction to Yossi Sarid’s statements about Naftali Bennett (“Sarid disgusted by thought of Bennett as education minister,” April 27).Sarid’s greatest achievement in a one-year term as education minister was to ram down the throats of our children the study of an Arab nationalist poet. He does not warrant a front-page platform to spout his extremist views when he states as fact that Bennett will damage the education system and disproportionately favor West Bank settlement schools.Sarid’s small-mindedness is palpable when he says he is willing to talk with Bennett only on this side of the Green Line!EVA KATZJerusalemAs education minister, Yossi Sarid once stated: “Our curriculum is a curriculum of peace, tolerance, pluralism and coexistence.” Ironic, then, that he should demonstrate such a lack of tolerance for Naftali Bennett.Also curious is that Sarid considers Bayit Yehudi, a recognized right-wing party, to be extremist, while in his eyes, left-wing Meretz, the party he once led, is not extremist.With his apparent lack of tolerance and baseless fears that Bennett, as education minister, could abandon secular schools, is this the model of perspective and behavior Sarid endorses for our children?CAROLYN TALJerusalemYossi Sarid has never hidden his extreme secularism and hatred for traditional Judaism. I was more than disgusted that he was once entrusted with the ministry that educates our children. Does anyone really care what he thinks about Naftali Bennett? I’m sure Bennett would have some choice words for Sarid. The article should never have appeared on the front page of the Post.KENNY FISHER JerusalemI had three children in school during the watch of former education ministers Yossi Sarid and Amnon Rubinstein. They tell me they were taught that the Balfour Declaration gave us the right to the Land of Israel. I told them that this vaguely worded document had no legal basis until it was incorporated into the Palestine Mandate.The what? My children said they had never heard of it. They knew of the British Mandate, but they never were taught that the land was divided at San Remo in 1920, and that the League of Nations accepted this and created the Palestine Mandate, thus making the declaration legal Internationally.The British were given the Mandate and expressly told that they were to assist the Jews in building their homeland there. They reneged and handed over 70 percent of that land to the Hashemites from the Arabian Peninsula, who now govern the Arabs of Palestine in the Kingdom of Jordan.Naftali Bennett rightly believes that all of Judea and Samaria belongs to the Jews, that the Palestinian nation is bogus, and that it would be suicidal for us to give the Arabs a state on our soil. Indeed, this would definitely not be in the interest of the Arabs now living there, for they would soon be taken over by Hamas and living under the same terror that the Arabs of Gaza are under today.This is what our children should be taught. Perhaps then we would not have this “Left” and “Right” division that we have today.EDMUND JONAHRishon LezionI am disgusted by your decision to put Yossi Sarid’s comments on your front page. Israel is a democracy, and Naftali Bennett is an elected representative of the people. Sarid is not. Of course, he once was a politician, and very briefly an education minister, but he failed and lost it all. Today, his opinion carries no more weight than that of any other citizen.So, dear editors, is every provocative quote worthy of a front-page headline?JEFF BALSAMRa’ananaI would like to take a quote that your article attributes to Yossi Sarid, but by replacing a particular word: “The [whatever] Ministry should only be entrusted to someone who cared about the issue his whole life, not a man who claims to have fallen in love with [the said issue] over the last few days.”Really? This implies that a cabinet minister should be highly qualified and experienced in that particular branch of government. My impression is that our selection process for ministers is determined by a deck of cards. The heads of parties sit around a table, and the person with the largest party shuffles a deck of ministry cards and passes them around. Every four years (or less), new players join the game.CHAIM FRIEDMANBeit ShemeshAddress both setsOn the front page of your April 27 issue, we read about the air force dealing with terrorists planting bombs (“IAF kills 4 terrorists on Syrian border”). On Page 4, we read of car bombings and shootings in Givatayim and Eilat (“Givatayim car bomb wounds local gangster”; “Police find gun believed linked to Eilat shooting”).How come the authorities can deal with one set of terrorists but seem helpless in dealing with the other?LARRY ISRAEL RehovotAs it should beAfter reading Susan Hattis Rolef’s “Can anything be done about the ‘ethnic demon’?” (Think About It, April 27), I would like to state the obvious. My wife and I are Ashkenazim. Our four children married “half and half.” Our seven (so far) married grandchildren – again half and half. Our great-grandchildren, 12 so far, will be hard put to say what they are.I am sure that we are typical, and that an immense number of people our age are in the same position. And so it should be.NAFTALI WERTHEIMTirat ZviGreat readLiat Collins is always good and a pleasure to read. However, “Drawing the Green Line” (My Word, April 24) needs special mention, as it was great. As someone who knows the Gush Etzion area, who has driven there repeatedly over many years and seen its growth and development from nothing but rocks and dead space to what it is today, thank you. Thank you for articulating so well what many of us have been thinking.SHARON ALTSHULJerusalemThat’s ‘inspired’?In “Still inspired, even after 67 years” (Independence Day supplement, April 22), you report that according to President Reuven Rivlin, the Israel- Palestinian conflict is the most complex of the region’s conflicts because “both are right.” If this is what is called inspired, is it any wonder we are still fighting for our existence? Of the two peoples living here, one is a figment of the Arab League, while the other is the one and only Jewish people, something Arab apologists obviously find difficult to accept.Rivlin goes on to say: “My heart goes out to the innocent people in Gaza who are being held hostage by Hamas.” Great propaganda for our enemies.Has he forgotten that these so-called innocents voted for Hamas, and that they dance and party in the streets whenever Israelis are murdered? He is right when he says: “We did not declare war on them, they declared war on us.” Yet we should have gone on the offensive and declared war, which is what any sane country does when it is constantly attacked.We should not be afraid to name our enemies or fight them until they are no more. Our children and their progeny deserve no less than the right to live and build without fear in the Jewish land.PHYLLIS STERNNetanya
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