By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: PIXABAY)Speaking of spikes“Gov’t imposes partial lockdown as virus spikes” (July 7) reports a list of restrictions, but nowhere can I see what the government plans to do to help the citizens of Israel.Our parents told us of their experiences during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1929 the stock market crashed. People in despair were diving off New York skyscrapers to end their lives. Then-president Herbert Hoover did little if anything to ease the suffering of the people. Added to the crash, there was a crop failure of biblical proportions. Disasters don’t always come one at a time. Ruined families left their dried-up farms and headed for California. We all read John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and his description of that time.What turned it around was the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who started the New Deal. He formed various agencies like the WPA to put unemployed people back to work. They built highways, took care of forests and many other projects. Slowly the people began to see hope. The New Deal saved a lot of American lives.Here, every day – sometimes every hour – there is a new regulation, which often contradicts the one from the previous hour. We were told that buses would be traveling with open windows and no air conditioning. Anyone who has been on a bus in the last 10 years or so, knows that very few buses actually have windows that open. By the end of the day that rule was changed also. Our ship of state seems like a sailboat in a typhoon.Just like in the 1930s, people are looking for hope. The government promises bailouts to various categories of people, but few have seen any money. We hear that in Australia, people fill out forms on the Internet and get a stipend by the end of the week into their bank accounts. Surely we could also figure out such a scheme to save so many people from poverty and despair.THELMA JACOBSONPetah TikvaThe Jerusalem Post’s daily criticism of the government’s handling of the coronavirus epidemic has become unfair, one-sided and hypocritical. While dealing with the virus, the government is afraid of the country going into a depression and hundreds of thousands being unemployed as a result of the virus-caused shutdown of workplaces, the enforced closing of thousands of small business, restaurants, theaters and entertainment centers, and the closing of schools, which left hundreds of thousands of school children at home – keeping their parents from going to work!Yet, the Post and the TV networks and their employees are working every day! They continue to show up or dial in to work and their checks are sent regularly to their bank accounts. Would the Post, its publisher, its executives, staff, and writers write the same criticism of the politicians wavering about putting the country back into lockdown and shutting down the economy once again if the newspaper had been forced to suspend publication for the last three to four months and everyone was on unpaid leave, and the corporation would have no income from advertising and face having to pay back unfulfilled subscriptions – as have the tens of thousands of small business owners, restaurants, theaters, small businesses, waitresses, artists, actors and the self-employed?How about a little sympathy for politicians and “experts,” who themselves have no idea how to cure the virus, much less how to balance the conflicting policies to keep our little country healthy while avoiding tipping over into economic disaster!ROY PINCHOTNetanyaSolution delusionsIn “What lies ahead for Israelis and Palestinians?” (July 10), Gilead Sher and Ze’ev Portner refuse to let go of the old 1949 armistice line, and insist that all possible agreements, including land swaps, and other “benefits of a viable negotiation,” start from there – even though the disputed land in question was never Palestinian land.But what really throws me for a loop is their implied assumption that they are dealing with two populations that really want the same thing – peace: “But one day, Israelis and Palestinians will have to face each other again... The core issues will remain and so will the solutions” – so let’s go!Yet, to find a solution, one must first define the problem. Israelis want to live, while the Palestinians want to murder those living. Until the Palestinians teach their children to compromise and to value life over being a martyr, the authors’ argument is simply an exercise in delusion.BARRY H. LYNN, PH.DSenior Associate Scientist, Hebrew University“Time for the Arab League to act” (July 10) is improperly titled. Arab League members issued an Arab Peace Initiative in 2002 and repeatedly ratified it in the past 18 years that indicated that the entire Arab world would normalize relations with Israel if Israel returned to the pre-1967 lines. They have agreed that there could be territorial swaps that would enable about three-quarters of Israelis living in Judea and Samaria to live in Israel.In addition, it could be significant that “Abbas says ready to resume negotiations with Jerusalem” (July 8).Recognizing the great difficulties involved and the very painful compromises that would have to be made, I think that Israel should respond positively to these initiatives. Israel needs a resolution of its conflict with the Palestinians to avert renewed violence, and continued diplomatic criticism, to effectively respond to its economic, environmental, health, and other domestic problems, and to remain both a Jewish and a democratic state.Israel’s other option, to annex parts of Judea and Samaria, poses great risks, including harming relations with Palestinians, peace partners Jordan and Egypt, European and other nations, US Democrats, and many US Jews.RICHARD H. SCHWARTZ, PH.D.Professor Emeritus, College of Staten IslandRegarding “Macron urges Netanyahu not to proceed with annexation” (July 10), this position by France – soon to become “Frankenstan” – and the EU is not surprising. To buy time and hopefully delay the approaching Islamic Storm, they will throw Israel under the bus at every given opportunity.What I would be interested in knowing is: when the Israeli prime minister speaks to the French and EU leaders, does he talk about “annexation” or “sovereignty?” If the latter, then the onus is on reporters to be more transparent and honest in their reporting. If the PM talks about “annexation,” then that failure is on him. Reporters owe it to their readers to clarify this with the PM.M. LEVENTHALJerusalemRegarding “The Beinart betrayal” (July 10), the historical background Peter Beinart paints is not wholly accurate and ignores salient facts.For the 400 years preceding the end of World War I in 1918, Palestine did not exist as a sovereign entity. It was a province of the Ottoman Empire under Turkish rule. Thereafter until 1947 (UNGA Resolution 181 – the Partition Plan) Palestine – with its increasing Jewish population – was legally under British tutelage pursuant to the League of Nations mandate to implement the Balfour Declaration. So to claim “for most of the 20th century, Palestinians pursued a state of their own in the entirety of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea” is not valid. (Indeed Palestine was for a period after 1918, considered synonymous with and a part of Syria.)Since 1948 to the present day, the world has recognized Israel as a sovereign state and since 1967, much of the international community considers the Palestinians to have a right of self-determination in territory now called the West Bank, wherever its final borders are determined.Given this factual background, it is difficult to assume either the Israelis or the Palestinians would regard their presence in Palestine (however geographically defined) as just their “home” and any solution must proceed from that premise.RAYMOND CANNONNetanyaDavid Weinberg could be criticized for giving unnecessary publicity to the post-Zionist nonsense of the so-called “liberal Zionist” Peter Beinart who, like so many of his ilk, lives in the goldene medina far away from any actual dangers that his detached delusions would entail.Yet I support Weinberg’s succinct and cogent analysis. We should remember that “bi-nationalism” is not at all new and has crawled out of the woodwork repeatedly over the last century. Apart from being notably racist by denying the Jewish people the national rights to that he enthusiastically advocates for all other nations apart from his own, Beinart’s creed is deeply anti-sociological, since the beauty of human diversity and its secret of success as a species lies in the free expression of many different colorful cultures, not their artificial melting into a giant mocca-colored mess.Let us take heart from the fate of previous bi-national fantasies like that of Ahad Haam, Magnes, Szold and others in their 1920s version called “Brit Shalom,” which withered into obscure extinction after the determined rejection and contempt of the Yishuv in those days. In this respect, Weinberg is recapitulating a necessary although unpleasant task, like cleaning out the toilets of history.PROF. ANTHONY LUDERRosh PinaIn “The Arab connection to Jerusalem” (July 9) Daud Kuttab supposedly quotes/ cites Genesis (10:1-20) saying “the Arabs, Hamites, Canaanites and Jebusites were the original Palestinians, including the area of Jerusalem.” Actually, Genesis says nothing of the sort – the claim is a complete fabrication. There is nothing there about Arabs or Palestine, nor does it include the word “Jerusalem.”Arabs came to this area during the Arab conquest, shortly after the death of Mohammed, and forced local inhabitants to convert to Islam. It therefore follows that many “Arabs” of the former Levant have Jewish antecedents and DNA. This could easily be checked out by DNA studies, if anyone were interested, and it also explains why many Palestinian town names resemble those from the Bible.In mentioning a recent National Geographic article, Kuttab concedes that Canaanite DNA was passed to Arab and Jewish groups alike in the region, with around half of their DNA being Canaanite. This varies from other Palestinian claims of being the original Canaanites. In turn, Canaanites are considered to derive from migrants from the distant Caucasus Mountains interbreeding with the local Neanderthal people.Speaking of Philistines – and not “Palestinians,” as misquoted by Kattub – an earlier National Geographic article (July 3, 2019), describes these people as coming from the area of current-day Greece and Crete, the Sea People, definitely not Semitic, and therefore not the predecessors of today’s so-called “Palestinians.”A little fact checking can undermine a lot of false claims in some op-ed articles.DAVID SMITHRa’ananaAll I gotta do is act naturallyReading “Halle Berry apologies for considering trans role” (July 10), I began to wonder if I was in fact reading a satirical pieceAs an actress, she is surely entitled (oops, not a good word these days) better “allowed” to choose roles as she sees fit, providing she is accepted for those roles by the producers. If it is now the case, as people tweeted in reaction to her decision not to take a trans role, that only trans people can play trans roles,” this throws up numerous questions regarding who can play a role in the future.A role of a mother with children can only be played by a real-life mother; a serial killer only by a real life serial killer?This brings us to roles in the recent past. Two excellent performances by Tom Hanks (Philadelphia) and Rupert Everett (The Ideal Husband) were played by men whose sexual orientation was the exact opposite to the role in question. This did not however detract from the brilliance of their performances.Will Sir Anthony Hopkins be forced to return his Oscar for his portrayal of Hannibal in The Silence of the Lambs? I presume he is not a cannibal. If another sequel is planned, will Hannibal be played by a bona-fide cannibal? Bruno Ganz was brilliant as Hitler in The Downfall, but as he is not a dictator who sought to annihilate the Jews and other minorities, should he have been able to play the role? Political correctness has reached all areas of life, and seems not to be able to be held back by rhyme nor reason, sadly a sign of our times.How, for example, could a film now be made about the Incas, or show how the Tasmanians were wiped out? Both, sadly, no longer with us.Let us realize that all human beings are capable of achieving things way beyond what we may assume to be their limits due to religion, skin color, gender or other criteria, and enjoy seeing somebody doing their best at portraying someone they are not. This is what art and acting are about. It is after all, only in a film, or play, and not real life. A little escapism – and tolerance – is due to all, I hope.ROBERT HICKINBOTHAMTel AvivChina challengeRegarding “Chinese companies warn cutting projects hurts ties” (July 10), I know that financial projects should be kept separate from politics, but it should be publicly said once in a while that China cannot do business with us and keep automatically supporting those countries that demand the destruction of Israel. It cannot keep supporting unbalanced votes, actions and statements by the UN and its various bodies and expect there to be no consequences.I call on China to act and use its veto in the Security Council and to vote against Item 7 in the UNHRC to show that it considers Israel a partner and not just a source of dollars. China should show it is an unbiased friend of Israel and not just interested in opposing the US wherever possible.MICHAEL H. DAVISRishon Lezion
