Jerusalem Post Letters to the Editor: Embassy move

President-elect “Tweety-Bird” would do well to stop treating the transition like a reality show and get down to business. A good start would be to attend daily briefings instead of ignoring them.

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Embassy move
With regard to “Embassy move to J’lem ‘a big priority,’ says Trump aide” (December 13) we can ask: What if America moves her embassy to Jerusalem and what if America moves her embassy to east Jerusalem?
DANIEL ABELMAN Jerusalem
Beyond theatrics
President-elect “Tweety-Bird” would do well to stop treating the transition like a reality show and get down to business. A good start would be to attend daily briefings instead of ignoring them.
These are dangerous times so he should set aside his denigrating the CIA or any other government agency trying to get at the truth behind the recent election.
It isn’t just Trump who may have been compromised. It was the entire election process.
Enough with the persecution complex, President-elect Tweety- Bird. It has grown tiresome. It’s time to can the theatrics and show the voters who elected you the leadership skills you claim to possess; and lead!
HERB STARK Mooresville, North Carolina
F-35 delay
In “F-35 fiasco could cost Israel” (Analysis, December 13) Yossi Melman writes: “The delay seemed particularly odd, because the plane’s manufacturers, spokespeople and Israel Air Force officials boasted that this was the most advanced plane in the world, capable of evading radar. Suddenly it was delayed at the airport in Italy because of low visibility and fog.”
Although Melman immediately blamed the F-35 manufacturers and the Air Force officials – who boasted about the F-35 capabilities – for the delay, it must be said that the same weather would have grounded any other modern warplane on delivery or not involved in an actual combat mission.
The problem has nothing to do with the plane and the boasting Air Force officials but with the organizers who should have been better prepared for bad weather.
MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC Beersheba
A family affair?
With regard to “Boeing disgraces itself with Iran blood deal” (Comment and Features, December 13), I usually read Shmuley Boteach’s essays with great interest; he writes well and tackles real problems.
But it irks me that he very often mentions members of his family. I know he likes to be in the limelight, but does this have to include his children?
RUTH SCHUELER Jerusalem
Educational saving
The large advertisement by Bank Hapoalim on page five of The Jerusalem Post (December 13) titled “Savings for every child” reminded me of a similar project in the United States when I was a child in the 1930s.
Rex Stout, the mystery writer, devised a school banking system in 1916. About 400 schools adopted it.
Every week we would bring a small amount of money – five or ten cents – to be deposited in the school bank. Every child had a bank book. Thus, we learned that even a small amount of money could add up if saved conscientiously.
IDA SELAVAN SCHWARCZ Ganei Omer
Sex-abuse suspects
My outrage cannot be contained or silenced any longer with regard to “Two haredi sex-abuse suspects live in capital without restriction” (December 13).
There are no conceivable limits that would restrain me – as a parent of a molested child, and furthermore exacerbating disunity and tensions within the family residing in a religious community – from actively retaliating.
These malevolent sex offenders and their enablers should be condemned and punished mercilessly as an example to those predators who continue their molestation but are not apprehended or judged and rightfully disdained by their own communities (more fodder for non-believers).
Shame on them all! And shame on our lax and apathetic judicial system!
GISH TRUMAN ROBBINS Pardesiya
Rabin myth
The myth that former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination disrupted a popular and successful administration crops up in Susan Hattis Rolef’s “Was there a golden calf in Rabin Square?” (Comment and Features, December 12) She writes that “had Rabin survived, he would most likely have been reelected.”
The news back in 1995 was actually that “Knesset opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, chief of the right-wing Likud Party, has shot to a near 2-1 lead over Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in opinion polls with 18 months to go before national elections. More than half of all Israelis are said to favor halting peace efforts with Palestinians.”
(Source: The Chicago Tribune, 1995) The youngsters at Rabin’s final rally had come to hear the pop stars there, not the speeches.
At other events – even at the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, to the embarrassment of us immigrants – Rabin could scarcely open his mouth without being bitterly heckled from all sides on account of the rapid rise in terrorist attacks.
MARK L. LEVINSON Herzliya
Understanding Amona
Surely the most comprehensive and clearest public statement of Israeli rights in the controversy over settlements is provided by the article: “Senior religious-Zionist rabbis criticize Bayit Yehudi for abandoning Amona” (December 12). The rabbis declared: “The Land of Israel in its entirety belongs to the Jewish people since God’s oath to the forefathers.”
Even the position of the Supreme Court is given succinctly in the editorial of the same date (“Evacuating Amona”) in support of the rule of law. It states: “...the court often plays a role in preventing situations in which the tyranny of the majority tramples more universal values such as the property rights of individuals who have no clear legal standing in the eyes of the State of Israel.”
Anyone who wants to know what the controversy is all about needs only The Jerusalem Post of December 12.
SIMCHA RUDMAN Jerusalem
Katsav’s unjust jailing
Something about the incarceration of former president Moshe Katsav strikes me as being unjust for two reasons.
The first reason is a feeling that Katsav was being punished in a political vendetta for what he said in an interview with Ruthie Blum published in The Jerusalem Post during the time Ehud Barak was prime minister. In the interview, Katsav said Israel’s leaders often did not plan a strategy when they went into meetings.
He cited as an example Barak going into the meeting at Camp David with former president Bill Clinton and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and offering sweeping concessions for a two-state solution.
I remember thinking after reading the interview how unwise it was for Katsav to express his thoughts on this matter, and how he should have waited until after his presidency to air his opinions. Shortly after the interview was published, charges of sexual harassment and rape surfaced.
These charges lead to the second reason I think the punishment is unjust. From the evidence published in the Post I do not think it was sufficient to prove Katsav was guilty of rape.
However, I could think of reasons why a woman would claim rape even though the relationship might have been consensual.
Men do not spend time in jail for being unfaithful to their wives.
The saddest part of this whole sordid story is the suffering it has caused Mrs. Katsav and their children to whom no one involved seems to have given a thought. With his public humiliation and incarceration Katsav has paid for his “sins.” It’s time to end his sentence.
ELISHEVA BORENSON Jerusalem