Bring this dream to reality
Whenever we believe the United Nations Assembly has reached its lowest point of anti-Israel discrimination, it promptly buries its head in the sands of further anti-Israel bias through ignorance, idiocy, stupidity and futility (“In 90-30 vote, UN decides to mark Palestinian ‘Nakba Day,’” December 2).
This time, even remarkable for this international body – which has no brain, no raison d’etre and no common sense, it passed an extraordinary resolution proclaiming “Nakba Day” meaning the “catastrophe” of the rebirth of the State of Israel.
The only “Nakba” is actually the United Nations General Assembly itself which since its founding has accomplished nothing. Moreover, its anti-Israel resolutions only serve to exacerbate the situation and encourage terror organizations which, in seeking the destruction of the State of Israel, deprive their own citizens of a life of dignity and decency in a peaceful Middle East.
The way to peace in the Middle East is for all the terrorist organizations to lay down their arms, recognize the State of Israel and come without preconditions to the negotiating table. This may seem like a dream but “it is out of dreams that reality is born,” and it’s time to seek leaders of the free world who are willing and capable of bringing this dream to reality.
Clearly the United Nations organization is neither willing nor competent to promote such a resolution, and maybe the time has come to defund this moribund, useless body of incompetence.
ARNOLD EPSTEIN
Jerusalem
Common sense
Regarding “The problem with Avi Maoz” (December 5): What the article demonstrates is how dangerous Maoz is for the reputation of Israel at home and abroad. What any government needs, whether on the Right, Center or Left, is a common sense minister who can advise the prime minister on what makes sense, not based on political ideology, not on what can or cannot be gotten away with, but what common sense is needed for removing provocation and a move toward peaceful coexistence. Avi Maoz is but an extreme example of provocation and political terrorism.
PETER LUCK-HILLE
Herzliya
Lighting the flames
On Friday morning, I woke up to the following headline: “Abe Foxman to ‘Post’: I won’t support a non-democratic Israel” (December 2). What exactly that means remains to be seen. He was joining other Jewish Israel-bashers Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East negotiator, and Daniel Kurtzer, onetime US ambassador to Israel. There are more on the way.
How can Jews in America speak out against Israel because of election results? Are they kidding? If they are so concerned about antisemitism, why are they lighting the flames and giving the green light to bash Israel, which will definitely lead to more rabid antisemitism?
JONATHAN SURASKY
Ra’anana
No compulsion
Regarding “A new, grim reality sets in” (December 4): The haredim only want the option of gender separation for public events which are designed for their sector, not events designed for the general public.
Like the overwhelming majority of Israelis who believe religious Zionist soldiers should not be compelled to attend events where a woman solo singer is featured, because it is antithetical to their religious beliefs, I suspect the majority of Israelis do not want to compel haredim to choose between attending a concert with mixed seating, a situation antithetical to their religious beliefs, and never having the opportunity to attend any concerts.
The secular Israelis I know only want no compulsion placed on their way of life; they do not want to compel others.
MARSHA DALIN
Modi’in
National hysteria
The article “Netanyahu accuses Lapid and Gantz of seditious behavior” (December 6) is one of the most frightening items I have read. The explicit call of Lapid, who is still the prime minister of Israel, to civil rebellion and the scare-mongering tactics of Gantz, who is still defense minister (“We will cause [the country] to tremble”), as well as the open threats of Merav Michaeli (“Whoever raises their hand to harm democracy... will get the mother of all protests in the streets, squares and bridges”) demonstrate so clearly the unwillingness of these despicable people to accept a democratic election result.
I wonder if they too will “storm” the Knesset, copying the events surrounding Mr. Trump in the US. I watched Mr. Lapid on the news and saw the hatred and revenge-seeking expression on his face.
I really do not understand the national hysteria which has gripped a large proportion of our people over the period from the last election. This hysteria has also crossed borders so that now we have American Jewish leader Abe Foxman shivering in his armchair Zionist boots. Prophecies of doom, of the end of democracy, of a Talmud-based state, of attacks on women’s rights, and more – are being thrown around indiscriminately.
And why do I have difficulty in fathoming the logic behind these fear-provoking expressions of impending horror? Because in fact, the imminent upheaval in social norms and behavior is indeed a direct result of a healthy democracy. The personalities who will now lead the various aspects of Israeli life are those same people who enjoyed the majority of the national vote.
Are people objecting because the democratic system did not produce the required majority for their own opinions? Is it that which makes it undemocratic?
The writing has been on the wall for some years and now the people have given the mandate to the newly elected MKs to clean up this place, clean up the High Court interference in legislation, clean up the lawfare and return it to warfare, clean up the army and let the soldiers do their job without the fear of legal beagle ex-post-facto criticism, clean up the streets from parades which many people do not want their children to see, clean up the education devoid of Jewish values, which our children are receiving, clean up the purity of Jewish identity – the list goes on and relates to matters long overdue, and a general situation which has gotten out of hand.
So stop this hysteria and let’s wait to see what the new government will actually do, not pay attention to the venom that our erstwhile leaders spit out, nor to that which false prophets of woe bemoan in advance.
LAURENCE BECKER
Jerusalem
Arab-fomented violence
Regarding “Bahraini FM: Palestinian statehood bedrock of Abraham Accords’ success” (December 5): A just solution for the Palestinians can arise only when their leaders give up on their dream of two states being a Palestinian state from which all Jews have been banished and a Muslim-majority Israel populated by millions of people who claim descent from Arabs who fled (Arab-fomented and -initiated) violence generations ago.
The sheer numbers (some six million on UNRWA rolls), and the fact that these “Palestine refugees” have grown up seeing Palestinians honored and rewarded for murdering Jews would mean that no Jew would be safe if Israel capitulated to demands for the “refugees” to be given the homes they claim their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on, lost when Israel was reborn in the Jews’ ancestral homeland.
The true road to two states for two peoples (a Palestinian state co-existing, peacefully, with the nation-state of the Jews) requires that Palestinian leaders stop working to destroy the Jewish state via violence and delegitimization in international fora. Palestinian leaders need to begin building the infrastructure needed by a viable state, to be constructed in Gaza and Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria.
The leaders would have to enter into negotiations with Israel, as the Oslo Accords required, so that both states would have recognized and secure borders. Arab states, whether in the Abraham Accords or not, could participate in bringing the plan to fruition, by offering to grant citizenship in their countries to Palestine refugees seeking to escape the UNRWA camps in which they have been trapped for generations. Palestinian leaders should also offer citizenship in the future Palestinian state to those “refugees” who would like to help build the new country.
Arab states could also offer donations to fund the building of the first-ever-to-exist Arab state of Palestine, with the work being carefully supervised to ensure that the money is, indeed, used to build a Palestinian state, not to destroy the Jewish state or enrich the coffers of corrupt governments.
TOBY F. BLOCK
Atlanta
Called to account
Rather than have 50 world leaders vote against sending Israel to The Hague, it would be more appropriate to encourage these same countries – and more – to finally admit that the United Nations is a failure (“Lapid calls on 50 world leaders to vote against sending Israel to The Hague,” November 30).
With unspeakable and unimaginable atrocities occurring around the world, and none of the responsible countries being called to account (and no action on the part of the UN to save civilian populations), it behooves us to shout loud and clear, “The emperor has no clothes!”
DIANA SCHIOWITZ
Jerusalem
Reputations on the line
It’s only toward the end of the article “Trump calls to abolish Constitution because of ‘election fraud’” (December 5) that it is revealed what Trump’s actual concern was, namely the release of “The Twitter Files.” The article says that the new Twitter owner Elon Musk released the files, but actually he deputized independent journalist Matt Taibbi to release the extensive documents that can readily be found on the Internet.
The article goes on to say that it is unclear whether the revelations are authentic, but it is beyond me why Musk and Taibbi would put their reputations on the line in such an elaborate fabrication. One can also be sure that the paper that leaked the Hunter Biden laptop story weeks before the 2020 presidential election, The New York Post, had its lawyers all over the article before authorizing its release.
The article also comments that many of the facts surrounding the laptop “have been continuously debated.” This is patently untrue: neither then-candidate Joe Biden nor his son Hunter have ever said that the story is untrue. The latest voluminous release and earlier revelations show that the FBI and the famous 51 former intelligence officials were heavily involved in the incorrect characterization of the laptop as Russian disinformation and hacked information, all of these people being paid for by American taxpayers.
Musk concludes that “Twitter was acting like an arm of the Democratic National Committee,” adding that it was absurd.
DAVID SMITH
Ra’anana