LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Illogical connections
Are Susan Hattis Rolef and I living on the same planet? It would seem that she cannot see anti-Semitism even when it is at its most obvious (“Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the British Labor Party,” Think About It, May 9).
Anti-Semitism and any other form of racism manifests itself in its connection with irrelevant and emotional pieces of information.
For example, by connecting Jews with matza, children and blood, or with wealth. In British political terms, Ken Livingstone connects Hitler with Zionism.
Others connect Israel with Islamic State.
What defines anti-Semitism is not the logic or otherwise in the reasoning, but in lining up Nazism, Hitler or ISIS with Jews and Zionism.
JUDY GABA Rehovot
The time has come
The situation in the Gaza Strip remains unbelievable (“IDF uncovers new Hamas tunnel as cross-border attacks threaten to escalate,” May 6). The tunnels that are being built, rebuilt, restructured and rehabilitated make us feel that we are in a web of annihilation.
Every time we go to destroy the tunnels, we are unsuccessful.
They are constantly there – as a warning that we could be invaded from underground. It is nice to hear the prime minister and top military personnel say how wonderful our intelligence is because another tunnel has been found. However, ordinary common sense should tell us that finding another tunnel is not good enough – most important is destroying them.
What prevents us from destroying these tunnels? What is going on among the nations that we are not able to do what we should be doing during every incursion into the Gaza Strip? The tunnels should be our first priority! Why do we play-act? The time has come to win a war and not state that we have accomplished the minimum.
THELMA SUSSWEIN Jerusalem
What country in the world would tolerate the building of attack tunnels whose sole purpose is to infiltrate its fighters into yet another confrontation with Israel? (I will not mention the fact that these tunnels are built with material supplied by Israel for building homes, hospitals and schools.) Where are the full-page ads taken out by our government in the world’s leading newspapers explaining this very serious violation of Israeli sovereignty, as well as the misuse of materials intended for the betterment of Gaza’s population? Why hasn’t Israel demanded that the UN Security Council meet in special session to discuss this? Where are the images of these tunnels being blown up by the IDF that can be circulated around the world? Our government sits back and takes everything on the chin. Only when rockets rain down does it move to explain to the world the true aim of militant Islam. It needs to be more proactive. Special cabinet meetings are not enough.
Israel needs an experienced foreign minister who will tour important capitals to tell the world exactly how it is.
EDGAR ASHER Petah Tikva
All in the marketing
Regarding “Expert says three dairy servings daily is vital for bones” (May 5), is it really feasible that humans be required to suckle from bovines? Of course not! According to the Oxford English Dictionary, milk is “an opaque white fluid rich in fat and protein, secreted by female mammals for the nourishment of their young.” Take note of the last part of the sentence. It doesn’t say milk is secreted for the nourishment of older offspring.
And it certainly doesn’t say it’s secreted for the nourishment of other species.
The very worst thing about the dairy industry is its cruelty; newborn calves for whom the milk is intended are torn from their mother’s side and killed.
But the industry has cleverly duped us into believing that we should be using more of its products, primarily for building strong bones. The truth, however, is that studies have shown that the countries with the highest intake of dairy are the ones with the highest incidence of bone fractures.
“If milk, dairy foods and calcium supplements prevent osteoporosis and its most catastrophic result, hip fractures,” the website Building Bone Vitality says, “the countries that consume the most calcium should have the lowest hip fracture rates. But they don’t. They have the world’s highest rates.
Four worldwide epidemiological surveys conducted by different research teams over 20 years agree that the countries that consume the most calcium (the US, western Europe, Australia and New Zealand) have the highest rates of hip fracture.
Meanwhile, countries that consume little or no milk, dairy and calcium supplements (much of Asia and Africa) have fracture rates 50 to 70 percent lower than those in the US.”
JENNY MOXHAM Monbulk, Australia
Status quo
Your May 1 editorial “Sanctifying the Mount” and April 25 report “Police remove 13 Jews from Temple Mount for public prayer” repeat the false assumption that prayer by individuals or groups of Jews never occurred on the Temple Mount since 1967. This is simply not true; there has been a changing status quo, especially after 2000.
Palestinian Muslim leaders have increasingly referred to the Dome of the Rock and the Aksa Mosque as being the entire Temple Mount, as they have with the Western Wall and its adjoining plaza. Although the keys to the two buildings were returned to the Wakf Muslim Trust by Moshe Dayan in 1967, those buildings are not and never have been equivalent to the entire Temple Mount.
The Supreme Court ruled and has repeatedly reiterated that Jewish groups and individuals indeed have the right to pray there, but subject to police determination of “public order needs.” From 1967 until September 2000, Jews went up to the Temple Mount freely and with prayer books, and prayed silently at will. There was no police check and no supervision by Wakf employees. I know, because I was one of those visitors, and I went several times.
Several groups of distinguished rabbis in groups of 10 prayed together on a monthly basis. All that changed in response to the premeditated rioting that broke out after September 2000, when Ariel Sharon went to the Temple Mount with a large retinue of armed police, even though the visit had been “cleared” with Palestinian Authority security official Jabril Rajoub.
The Temple Mount was closed to Jewish visitors until 2003, when it was reopened, with restricted hours and new rules forbidding group prayer.
Overzealous policemen were particularly diligent about Jewish visitors deemed religious; they increasingly allowed vociferous Palestinian Wakf monitors to determine if supposed Muslim sensibilities had been irritated.
Palestinian rhetoric now regularly asserts that there was no Temple on the Mount, and that Jews have no reason to even visit, let alone pray there. This falsehood has now been enshrined in the recent UNESCO resolution about zero Jewish connection to the Temple Mount. Please note that Wakf historian Aref al Aref asserted in his 1929 publication A Brief Guide to the Haram al-Sharif that “the Mount’s identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.”
The Palestinian Authority is working very hard to ensure that increasing numbers of Muslims believe there is no reason for a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, and indeed no legitimate Jewish attachment to the Western Wall and the adjoining plaza. Let our own media make sure that the facts are made very clear.
FRIEDA R.F. HORWITZ Jerusalem