Remarkably clueless
Regarding “Borrell: Israel mustn’t be consumed with rage” (November 17): For someone who claims to have a reasonably thorough understanding of what those who survived Hamas savagery are going through and feeling, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is remarkably clueless.
He incorrectly assumes that this nation is being triggered by fits of rage and pointlessly cautions that it should not be all-consuming. Not surprisingly, the bias of the EU in general and Borrell specifically prevent any real understanding of what we are experiencing.
Does Borrell not fathom, for example, the risk that Israel took, back in 2005, in handing over Gaza to Palestinian control? Not only was the hope of then-prime minister Ariel Sharon not realized, the exact opposite is what we now have. Instead of a Middle Eastern version of Singapore – one in which all neighboring nations could have benefited economically and culturally – Gaza has been converted into, for all practical purposes, one giant missile launching pad.
How can Borrell so offhandedly suggest that Hamas and the Palestinians are not one and the same? He must surely be aware that the Palestinians voted Hamas into office fully mindful of the platform on which the party was running, and that violent acts of Hamas would draw a response from Israel. Borrell has no right to excuse the “Palestinian people” from complicity in the hostilities which Hamas initiated.
Moreover, the horrific events of Simchat Torah were hardly spontaneous or unplanned. A major infiltration that included mass murder and the kidnapping of nearly 250 men, women, and children demanded the involvement of “ordinary” Gazans. The logistics of this venture – communication, transportation, concealment, weaponry – were hardly insignificant, and Hamas operatives alone could not have pulled off this travesty .
I’m prepared to accept that Borrell is indeed sincere in his expression of sympathy for the victims of the massacre and the plight of the hostages. The question is whether he is ready to convert that sincerity into a greater degree of EU support for Israel. Then, perhaps, he would truly understand what we in Israel are feeling.
BARRY NEWMAN
Ginot Shomron
Dealing with terrorists
If we are releasing terrorists for our hostages (“US says hostage deal close; cabinet meets family reps,” November 21), it should be, as the world would say, “proportional” – one hostage for one terrorist.
Innocent hostages should be released unconditionally, or at most for a humanitarian ceasefire. The basic demand should be that the Red Cross, at the same time, gets to meet all the rest of the hostages.
Additional conditions should not be accepted, as these would again be setting a precedent. Israel should continue to fly over and do surveillance to protect troops on the ground during any ceasefire.
In the past when we have had ceasefires, Hamas claimed it was Palestinian Islamic Jihad or other splinter groups which didn’t save Hadar Goldin or others.
We are not dealing with a state. We are dealing with terrorists.
SHLOMO LOSHINSKY
Ma’aleh Adumim
Losing ground
Regarding “Shock the world: Share Hamas massacre video,” by Zvika Klein (November 20), I could not agree with you more. I live in New York City – presently in Israel visiting family – and the strong voice and positive character of Israel is losing ground, if not absent altogether, in my city and, I feel, the rest of the United States.
Israel is the start-up nation that has harnessed the Internet in ways nobody had thought of, but Hamas and pro-Palestinian groups have now usurped this talent. They are more creative, more vocal, and more present day-to-day in every walk of life in the cities and universities.
Something has to be done immediately. We need a media center filled with thousands of our most talented people just disseminating our message constantly, using Israeli ingenuity and creativity. We need our own – please pardon the expression – “info jihad.”
RACHEL NEUMARK HERLANDS
New York City
No peaceful solution
Regarding “US Jewish lawmakers ramp up criticism of Israel” (November 19): Hamas is a component of the same machine as Iran and Hezbollah, devoted to extirpating the Jewish state. Hamas must be destroyed. For this machine, there is no negotiation, no peaceful solution, only a Palestinian state replacing Israel, rather than living “side by side with Israel in peace and security.”
October 7 is but a small example of what will happen should the machine succeed. To prevent it from prevailing, Hamas and Hezbollah, each in its turn, must be smashed as a military force. The IDF is currently sealing the fate of Hamas.
However, we are witnessing mounting opposition to this paradigm. From the head of the UN to members of the US Congress, comes the cry, “ceasefire.” The Israeli military is killing too many civilians and it must stop, they demand.Recent reliance on questionable Hamas death statistics comes from US legislators. Congresswoman Becca Balint calls for “an immediate break in violence to allow for a true negotiated ceasefire,” with a “move towards negotiating a sustainable and lasting peace.”
She actually believes Hamas, whose reason for existing is to supplant Israel with an Islamic state, is to negotiate a “lasting peace” with the entity it is pledged to destroy. She doesn’t see the contradiction.
Then there is Senator Ossoff, who, according to the JTA report in The Jerusalem Post, spoke in the Senate to “excoriate Israel’s conduct.” He opined Israel must fight Hamas, but was “unstinting in his criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war.”
Does Ossoff propose to lecture the Israeli military, presenting a better, more just operational plan? Likely, his accusation of Israeli “moral failure” is intended for his progressive voter base.
These legislators stand with other “friends of Israel,” who attack the Israeli war effort, such as French President Macron, who sullied Israel and its fighting forces with the outrageous claim, “De facto today [Palestinian] civilians are bombed. De facto, babies, ladies, old people are bombed and killed. There is no reason for that and no legitimacy” (Jerusalem Post, November 12).
These “friends” are doing harm to their own countries. “Israel has made the case that it is fighting this war not just for itself, but for the democracies of the West, as part of the battle against Iran’s influence across the globe” (Post editorial, November 15).
What is it that blinds them, as they help Hamas survive?
BERNARD SMITH
Jerusalem
Parade and scream
Avi Zivotofsky (“Suggestions to US university administrations,” November 16) has written a superb article focusing on the huge gaps in education in contemporary US – he could have said North American and British – universities, and suggested that such gaps have contributed heavily to the almost unbelievable situations we see today, where university students – supposedly the brightest of the generation’s young people – parade and scream in favor of the most virulent murderous thugs and notions on the planet.
I agree with what Zivotofsky has written, and I have for a long time in notes and discussions with people emphasized that young people cannot be considered educated if they leave university without having taken such essential courses as the economic and political history of 20th century Europe.
But there are a number of problems that need to be resolved. When I was a representative to the assembly or parliament of the American Psychiatric Association, people frequently made very good suggestions for adding a course to training programs. The directors of such programs would respond that the students are already overloaded with a very large curriculum of areas we think important for the psychiatrists of the next generation to know. How much more do you think we can squeeze in?
The essentials that Zivotofsky very correctly suggests should indeed be brought back. But it will necessitate cutting out many nonsensical courses which demonstrate grotesque biases by totally inappropriate teachers, who have usually been given new chairs created by funding that today we must consider as highly inappropriate.
Universities have been happy to receive such donations, turning a blind eye to how they corrupt the minds of gullible students. In Britain, an awareness has developed that some leading universities have been corrupted by Chinese funding, and I am aware that many academics now will not bother to read or take seriously any published paper that indicates an affiliation with or sponsorship by a Chinese source, because the impression is that they are all compromised.
In North America, there has been a large amount of similar subsidies from very questionable Arab sources, and so naturally administrators have been very reluctant to condemn the rioters, and even more reluctant to turn down the offers of setting up chairs, and removing the biased nonsense courses from curricula.
But that is what is essential: to restore serious education, as Zivotofsky emphasizes, remove the biased trivia, and dismiss disruptive students who are not there to learn. If they genuinely want to learn, they can first grow up, drop their delusion that you come to university to protest, and then, perhaps a few years later when more mature, they can return to actually learn.
JOSEPH BERGER
Netanya