Letters to the Editor February 17, 2020: Contemptible UN boycott
Readers of The Jerusalem Post have their say.
By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: PIXABAY)Contemptible UN boycottRegarding “The UN’s shameful list” (February 14), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachett’s clearly biased plan will backfire. Decent people will patronize the companies she has listed, just as they have done when BDS tries to boycott someone.BTW, the reason why Judea and Samaria became “mostly Arab” was because during the 1948 war to “drive the Jews into the sea,” the British-trained and armed (and sometimes led) Jordanian army and its allies either murdered or drove out every Jew.LEN BENNETTOttawa, On Angry at Olmert and the PAWords cannot adequately express my anger, dismay and total disgust with Ehud Olmert’s presentation of clairvoyance and spleen that purported to explain why he met with our arch-foe Abbas, an unspeakable offense to all decent people (“Why I met with Mahmoud Abbas,” February 14). David Weinberg’s column on the same page cited chapter and verse in a succinct outline mitigating against Olmert’s treachery.Editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz attempted a weak defense of the indefensible in an analogy with Netanyahu’s conduct in the distant past under dissimilar circumstances.Olmert’s egregious act and fallacious flattery of Abbas is an affront to every victim of Palestinian terror that Abbas incentivizes and the memory of every man, woman and child murdered in the Holocaust that Abbas denies.JOEL KUTNERJerusalemEhud Olmert, the has-been politician and former convict, who failed to deliver an agreement with his erstwhile compatriot Abu Mazen, who failed to overturn the legacy of the late Teddy Kollek when he unsuccessfully created a New Jerusalem Foundation, continues to spout his opinions on the pages of your otherwise superb newspaper with his personal musings.Why should you provide this failed individual with a soapbox to spout his hateful vitriol and unsubstantiated musings? True, there are many other excellent columnists in your paper to which I look forward every day, but something is not right when your fine paper enables and thus encourages a man obsessed with himself to attempt to influence the masses.Examine his latest offering and count how many times he writes the word “I.” That is bad enough, but when he pretends to have mind-reading powers to know what Prime Minister Netanyahu or President Trump are really thinking, isn’t this going too far for your editorial board?Perhaps Olmert’s most egregious statement is that, he is “personally not willing to give in to the brutal violence carried out by Netanyahu and his gang of thugs.” Huh? When does a contributing writer cross your literary red lines? It may be time to find a better use of the precious space in our preeminent English-language Israeli newspaper.STEVE M. SOLOMONEfratOlmert should be asked three questions:1. What is his reaction to the unprecedented law that Abbas legislated which provides an automatic award for life for anyone who murders a Jew? (That law also rewards the family of the murderer.) The Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs has documented the veracity of this law.2. How does he respond to the new school curriculum imposed by Abbas, which the research of the Center for Near East Policy Research has documented to be based on delegitimization of Israel’s existence, demonization of Israel, and the violent “liberation of Palestine”?3. Will he disclose his personal investments in the Palestinian Authority?DAVID BEDEINDirector, Israel Resource News AgencyEhud Olmert has begun to sound like the Palestinians who reacted to President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by screaming that Jerusalem was to have been an international city (conveniently neglecting to mention that Jerusalem wasn’t internationalized because the Arabs rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan and went to war to prevent Israel’s rebirth in the Jews’ ancestral homeland).Now Olmert tells us that he is ready to resume negotiating on the 2008 proposal that should have led to the founding of the first-ever-to-exist Arab State of Palestine, on essentially all of the disputed land, with the possibility of shared governance in parts of Jerusalem. Olmert says PA leader Mahmoud Abbas negotiated with him at great length concerning this proposal. How is it then, that in all these years, there have been no reports of Abbas’s counteroffers? And, if things were going so well, why did Olmert refuse to give Abbas the proposed map (which, Abbas claims, is what sunk the deal)?No matter how much Olmert may have deluded himself, the fact remains that Abbas has stated that the struggle will continue even if a peace treaty is signed. He has prioritized paying stipends to people who murder Jews (and/or the murderers’ families) over all of the PA’s other fiscal responsibilities. He has denied the Jewish connection to both the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. In short, if Abbas is the best negotiator the Palestinians have, Israel has no Palestinian leader with whom to negotiate.TOBY F. BLOCKAtlanta, GAI was disgusted that you published this article by Olmert. Your paper is read by American Jews who have little loyalty to Israel at the best of times and despite all that Trump is doing for Jewish survival, hate his guts.What are you trying to do – become like The New York Times? Is becoming a turncoat newspaper to appeal to most of the anti-Zionist world more important to you than supporting Israel and its right to exist? You know for its survival Israel cannot possibly give up the West Bank at this time. Shame on you!!!SANDRA KLEINNew YorkAfter seeing former prime minister Ehud Olmert at his joint press conference with PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas, I believe I know what his future plans entail: he wants to succeed Abbas as president of the PA.This would be good news for Israel, since if he then negotiated as foolishly for the Palestinian Arabs as he did for Israel, he would make us a wonderful offer that even the extreme right would be thrilled to accept.The bad news would be that he likely would be as ineffectual as a Palestinian president as he was an Israeli prime minister and the peace treaty he signed for them would be as meaningless as the Oslo Accords.ALAN STEINNetanyaPA leader Mahmoud Abbas compares the Trump plan to “Swiss cheese,” with lots of holes in it. However, this particular cheese is world-famous because of its quality. Evidently, Abbas really does not know how good the ingredients of the cheese – and the plan – really are.REV. MICHAEL PLASKOW, MBENetanyaPlease allow me to point out something positive from Olmert’s article: “I do not currently hold any public office and I do not profess to represent any political group.”Long may this continue.STEPHEN VISHNICKTel AvivAsk the Kurds or YazidisRegarding “Grand Mufti bans Palestinians from supporting peace plan” (Jpost.com, February 15), George Bush must have been mistaken when he assured us that “Islam is peace,” since anyone who supports US President Donald Trump’s peace plan deserves to be “cursed by Allah, his angels and all people,” according to Grand Mufti Muhammad Hussein of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories.In his wisdom, the Grand Mufti also stated that the Trump peace plan was designed to deny the Palestinian people the right to live with dignity. Hmm. Peace plans are designed to rob people of dignity? A national culture of murder and terror is so much better for self-esteem? Oh yeah? Ask groups like the Kurds or the Yazidis if they would like a state of their own, with $50 billion dollars of investment to jump start it economically, in exchange for demilitarization and a culture of peace.Then measure – in nanoseconds – the time it takes these people to start dancing in the streets in pure joy.JULIA LUTCHDavis, CAOfficial Palestinian Authority TV broadcasted on November 29: “The historical documents in the possession of the Palestinians of Jerusalem testify that Jerusalem is a city of Arab origin for thousands of years, and its history and culture are Islamic. Since Islam’s conquest [in the 7th century], the Al-Buraq Wall (i.e., the Western Wall) has remained an Islamic Waqf. The Muslims have the absolute right to it and there is not even one rock there that dates back to the period of King Solomon, as the Jews claim.”PA TV routinely broadcasts this type of unadulterated rubbish to negate the Jewish presence in Jerusalem, which existed for millennia before Arabs ever became Muslim and their new religion forbade their practice of drinking wine and sacrificing virgins. Umar ibn al-Khatab, an Arabian convert from polytheism to Islam, conquered Jerusalem in the 7th century, long after the Romans destroyed the Second Jewish Temple.In an official pamphlet as recently as 1925, the Islamic Waqf acknowledged the Jewish nature of the Temple Mount. Even the Arab name for Jerusalem, “al Quds” is derived from the name of the Jewish Temple. Only people who are stupid or hateful enough to believe PA TV’s vacuous assertions, would accept as true, the Arab historical revisionism of the 20th and 21st Centuries.No wonder the Trump peace plan was rejected by these pathological liars who think they can take the Promised Land from its true owners with lies and crude violence. Trump called their bluff; from the look of the reactions in the Arab world, someone finally made headway against their knee-jerk rejectionism that has stymied peace in the Middle East ever since the Turks surrendered the Ottoman province of Palestine in 1917 to British forces.DESMOND TUCKSan Mateo, CAAxing Jews who betrayIn “Red-hot revenge” (February 13), the writer declares that US President Donald Trump ”axed three Jews he thought betrayed him.”Trump has been a victim of hysterical hatred since his election by “virtuous” liberals who went as far as framing a defamatory accusation of “Russian collusion,” which after two years of investigation proved to be false. They then started a partisan impeachment process that failed. If some (regretfully, too many) of these “virtuous” liberals happen to be Jewish, and if Trump rightfully fires these noxious characters, that does not make an antisemite of him, as the article implies disgustingly. Those same “virtuous” liberals supported Obama, who sided with Iran against Israel. Self-hating Jews, they betrayed the Zionist cause and tried to destroy the presidency of Israel’s best friend ever in the White House (according to Israel’s longest-serving prime minister of Israel, who should know).The end of the article says, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” This is true. Trump will be reelected and then the hateful “democratic” Left will be shut out of power for a long time, just like in England and Israel. Thank God!MORDEKHAÏ MSIKAJerusalemI felt put out and even insulted by “Trump’s vision of Jerusalem” (February 13). First, there is no such entity as a “Palestinian nation.” This was created as a ploy to deny the Jews of their God given heritage of the Land of Israel. Further, the only thing that these so-called “Palestinians” accomplish is to destroy as many Jewish (Hebrew) artifacts and sites as they can in an effort to rewrite history. I refer to the article “Profaning the Holy Sites” (February 12).The Jewish people preserve and protect the sites of all religions. The “Palestinians” deny the Jews the right to pray at their (Jewish) holy sites and even go so far as to vandalize or destroy these sites. In addition, they attack Jewish worshipers trying to attend these places.It would seem that the writer is one of those who say, ”Don’t confuse me with the truth.”JOE SIMONJerusalemConcerning religious toleranceIn “Friedman plants a tree” (Grapevine, February 16) one finds the claim “India is well known for its pluralism and religious tolerance.”Really? Just google the news about “India Muslims” to see what has been going on during the past few weeks.BRENDA BRONNERJerusalemSome 50% of Grapevine’s space on February 16 was devoted to praising the activities of Chabad; rightly so.The prohibition of Chabad activities in schools and kindergartens in Tel Aviv and Givatayim is also criticized. The article states authoritatively that Chabad activity is hardly missionary activity. Dead wrong. By definition, a missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to promote their faith or perform ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. This exactly fits the Chabad activities as described in the article.It goes on to positively describe Chabad activity in stopping passersby to lay tefillin because “no one knows which good deed (mitzvah) is the key to opening the doors of heaven.” Which is exactly what missionary activity is.I don’t want my kid (or grandkid) to come home and insist on laying tefillin because it may open his door to heaven. Lets call a spade a spade. Chabad is the epitome of missionary activity and should be kept out of secular schools – as well as all other forms of so-called religious observance.YIGAL HOROWITZBeersheba
