Letters to the Editor

Whenever I see a headline like “Security cabinet weighs tougher measures after latest attacks” (July 3), I ask why it couldn’t have introduced tougher measures before the attacks.

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Gov’t negligence
 Whenever I see a headline like “Security cabinet weighs tougher measures after latest attacks” (July 3), I ask why it couldn’t have introduced tougher measures before the attacks.
We are in an ongoing war against organized Palestinian terrorism – wolves generally hunt in organized packs. Someone gets a message – it’s your turn to go and kill a Jew – and this person goes and does his or her terrorist duty.
How is it that windows of firstfloor bedrooms in the settlements do not have security bars against infiltrators? How is it that cars full of gunmen can be driving on our roads without hindrance? Tough measures much be in place and maintained all the time so that the toll of our precious lives is reduced. Any government that fails to protect its citizens is negligent.
JACK S. COHEN Netanya
It was the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher who said, on the many occasions she was asked to explain her motives in making policies: “There is no alternative.” So it must be with our government’s approach to this wave of terrorist attacks.
At the moment, there exists no deterrent to those who seek to kill us. These onslaughts shall continue unabated until the decision is made to expel the families of these murderous extremists.
There is no alternative! SUSAN ADDLEMAN Mevaseret Zion
 Terrorism is running rampart in Israel. The hatred that drives the Palestinians should shock the world. But the world remains silent.
The word “terrorism” is the glorification of what is happening. It would seem to me that if these attacks were called murder, it would create less glamour and refute that these attacks imply a political end.
The individual actions by a Palestinian are given political credence by using the term terrorism.
Can anyone claim that the murder of a 13-year-old girl satisfies a political goal? Can anyone really believe that shooting at a moving automobile with a family in it satisfies a political goal? Let us no longer use the terms relating to terror attacks. Let us no longer glorify these attacks by designating them as such. These terms give the perpetrators some sort of sanction and reason, but they are pure and simple acts of murder by individuals who have no conscience.
MARILYN GINSBURG Lake Worth, Florida
Last week, an Israeli was stabbed to death in her bed.
Once again, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pathetically asked the world to condemn the act, and asked the leader of the murderers to condemn the act – the very same leader who was given a standing ovation in the European parliament.
Last week, President Reuven Rivlin amazingly called the head of the UN a “friend of Israel.” This week, Israel will pay Turkey a great amount of money because we are, after all, the bad guy.
Israel is the bad guy because we allow all of this to continue. The government must wake up! DAVID ROTENBERG Jerusalem
 Elie Wiesel
 Ellie Wiesel was a supreme educator, always sensitive to students’ ideas and emotions.
In July 2000, I sent him a copy of the booklet “Personal Reactions in Poetry, Prose and Pictures to Night by Elie Wiesel” by the students of the Solomon Schechter Day School in Dallas, Texas, and Merkaz Mada V’Daat L’Mehunanim in Shlomi, Israel. I sent it to him as part of the International Book Sharing project of Yad Layeled at the Ghetto Fighters’ House of Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot.
I didn’t expect a response, but just wanted him to know how much of an impact his book was having on the younger generation.
In mid-September, though, we received a personal letter: “I am always pleased to read the responses of young people to Night and was especially moved to read of the collaboration between the students in Dallas, TX and those in Shlomi, Israel.
From your letters and poems, it is evident that you will work together in creating a new kind of century....”
My colleagues and our students were awed by his attentiveness to our thoughts and to the reactions of each student. We will always cherish the work and memory of this great humanitarian.
NANCY MILGRAM Nahariya
 Words and meaning
Your July 3 headline “After Gaza rocket hits Sderot preschool, IAF strikes Hamas targets” is appropriate.
But the caption of the accompanying photo is not. It mentions a “retaliatory air strike” by Israel.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, to retaliate means to repay in kind, to return like for like, to get revenge.
Israel never retaliates. The IDF never takes revenge. The IAF did not target a Gaza preschool. We might “respond,” “react” or “counterattack” when appropriate, but we do not retaliate.
Please, never use this word again when referring to IDF actions (unless it says what you mean).
DANIEL SHER Jerusalem
Zogby’s disconnect In “Zogby answers his critics” (US Affairs, Frontlines, July 1), Michael Wilner reports that Arab American Institute (AAI) president James Zogby “does not support boycotts that target Israel’s basic right to exist.”
Had your Washington bureau chief checked, he would have found that on June 15, 2015, Zogby, one of Bernie Sanders’s representatives on the Democratic National Committee’s platform committee, posted on the AAI website an article titled “BDS: A Legitimate and Moral Response to Israeli Policy.”
The BDS movement is unabashed in its attempts to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist. The disconnect in Zogby’s statement should have been further probed.
KALMAN H. RYESKY Petah Tikva
The problem with the Democratic National Committee’s platform on the Palestinian issue, calling for a “viable,” democratic state that exists “in peace and dignity” with Israel, is that this not what the Palestinian leadership wants.
For those who are confused, read what the Palestinian Authority and Hamas say, as recorded and translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) and MEMRI.
For those who are still not convinced, read the PLO and Hamas charters, which call for the elimination of Israel.
MOSHE DANN Jerusalem
 Far more descendants Regarding “The unknown legacy of a Japanese hero: Chiune Sugihara” (Comment & Features, June 30), Gilad Kabilo states that “the descendants of the Sugihara Visas survivors exceed 40,000.” I do not know how he determined that particular number, but it aroused my curiosity as to its accuracy.
I am personally acquainted with two families, each composed of descendants of survivors.
In each of those two families alone, there are at least 70 living descendants. Taking that number as a crude basis for the descendants of only 2,000 of the 6,000 survivors would give a number well into six figures; bear in mind that there are already four generations extant from that group coming out of Shanghai and elsewhere.
It appears to be clear from these calculations that the legacy of this heroic figure is far greater than 40,000. It certainly would be a worthwhile project for some statistician to attempt to determine a far more realistic calculation.
MARCHAL KAPLAN Jerusalem
CORRECTION
 The figures given for water theft in “Israel blames Palestinians for West Bank water shortage” (June 27) are incorrect. According to the spokesman for the Water Authority, some 5 million cubic meters of water are stolen annually in the West Bank by Palestinians, while in northern Samaria, it is about 1.2 million cu.m. annually.