Capitulating to Hamas
In addition to the thought-provoking points made by Zvika Klein in “The silent majority needs to speak up for the hostages and for Israel” (April 19,) I’d like to add one more consideration: The hostages from October 7 are not being held by the Israeli government. Calls on the government to “bring them home now” ignore the role of the party which is actually holding the hostages and which would like the terms of their release, if any, to be as expensive and dangerous for Israel as possible.
Some demonstrators, by proclaiming that no price is too high, allow their emotions to blind them to the consequences and encourage Hamas to up the ante so that its demands remain unacceptable to any sane government. Politically, it may be significant that the demonstrations seem overwhelmingly to promote the vision of capitulating to Hamas rather than the vision of locating and rescuing the hostages.
Between the two solutions, each arguably impractical in its own way, the inclination seems to be against the one that, if successful, would reflect well on the government and in favor of the defeatist vision that, even if successful, would leave the government humiliated.
MARK L. LEVINSON, Herzliya
Hot and cold
It is a physiological impossibility to blow hot and cold at the same time. However, that is what the US is now doing. “US House passes $95 billion Israel, Ukraine aid package” (April 21,) a very welcome article, is comforting in that it sends us a clear message that the US has finally realized that the Israel-Hamas war and the Israel-Iran confrontation is, in fact, the precursor to a worldwide Muslim-Judeo/Christian conflagration. Therefore, US support is needed to confront this issue.
Notwithstanding this realization, “US to announce sanctions against IDF unit” (April 21) proves that the US and Europe just cannot grasp that the Israeli Jew is not the same as the Diaspora Jew. No more does the Jew have to cringe in the corner and hope that the currently fashionable pogrom will go away. America cannot get its head around the fact that, when attacked, the Jew now fights back.
So, while blowing hot on military assistance, it blows cold on the retaliatory actions of a few determined and proud citizens who retaliate against the murderous attacks on mothers and children, young shepherds, and ordinary innocent civilians traveling the roads of Judea and Samaria. Since when has the US become a new international criminal court to convict upon the “evidence” of a few ultra-Left activists who feed them with biased and agenda-ridden tales?
Yes, it is a huge vote of thanks to the US for its financial and military assistance, but it is a black mark for having the chutzpah to consider sanctioning a few brave and proud Jews and, indeed, an entire unit of the IDF.\
LAURENCE BECKER, Jerusalem