By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: REUTERS)Fighting the dealThough Israel’s campaign against the agreement with Iran is justified, our government must now realize that it is futile to encourage rallies and demonstrations in America to try to change what is a done deal, something that has the support of several other countries that had been involved in the negotiations (“Kerry: Critics of Iran deal spinning ‘fantasy,’” July 24).Even if Congress votes against the agreement, President Barack Obama will surely veto it. Not only will further anti-agreement protests not achieve anything positive, they will anger Obama further – and Israel will surely need American military and political support because the Iranians will surely expand their terror activities against us and other countries in the Middle East.JOSHUA J. ADLER JerusalemThe Democrats and the Republicans in Congress seem to have a wide divide to cross if they are to come together against the Iran deal.It is obvious that it is a bad deal. Simply put, there is no way we can monitor the Iranians if they decide to go forth in their quest for nuclear weapons. But receiving many billions of dollars gives a rogue state greater strength and recognition as an important player in Middle East politics.I cannot believe that rational Democrats do not recognize the danger of the deal. I can only surmise that because it is their president’s deal, they feel they have to support it. Have they become unable to think for themselves? As for Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senator from New York, he must have reached a conclusion. I would bet that he is opposed to the deal but will succumb to his political ambitions.MARILYN GINSBURG Lake Worth, FloridaOne would have expected, given the German chemical firm BASF’s history during World War II (when it was part of IG Farben, which manufactured the poison gas Zyklon B), that it would keep away from the Jew-hating ayatollahs – and certainly not be among the first in Tehran, even before the ink on the agreement had dried (“German minister engulfed by storm of criticism for Iran visit,” July 22).ERWIN PAVEL Ra’ananaThe Jacobian lineWith all due respect to the Friends of the Jacob Sheep (“The Case for bringing Jacob sheep to Israel,” Comment & Features, July 23), these efforts are based on the assumption that the Jacob sheep “currently doesn’t exist in Israel.”Having been personally involved in the transfer some 20 years ago of two of these spotted and speckled sheep from the Safari in Ramat Gan to the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem, where their offspring may be viewed to this day, I can attest to the inaccuracy of that assumption.The discovery of Jacob sheep in Israel was reported at the time in The Jerusalem Post and other Israeli newspapers.MOSHE AUMANN JerusalemGood British deeds In Daniel Wagner’s “The royal family, the Hitler salute and British policy during the war” (Comment & Features, July 23), there is no mention at all of Britain’s decision to accept released Jewish prisoners from Dachau at the beginning of 1939.My father was one of them, having been arrested in Vienna on Kristallnacht, and held in Dachau until his release. The men were released on the condition that they left Vienna within three months, and if they did not, they would be returned to Dachau.The decision to accept the Jewish men was passed by the UK Parliament. When inquiring about bringing their wives, they were told that this was possible only if there was a work permit for a female domestic servant.Nobody wanted a domestic with a child, so a solution had to be found.The solution was the Kindertransport, established in November 1939, and it was my father’s initiative to bring me to England in the hope that my mother would be able to follow.I left Vienna with the last Kindertransport group.British people, Jews and non- Jews alike, accepted 10,000 children between the ages of three and 17; complete strangers were willing to give a home to a Jewish child from Austria, Germany or Czechoslovakia.Because of Britain, we, the kinder, did not have to perish in the Holocaust, as did more than a million and a half Jewish children.Why is there no mention of this good deed by the British? I am sure that the future queen, at the age of eight or so, had no idea what the Hitler salute meant. Her uncle Edward most probably told her to do so.And why bring all this up now? Can the past be changed?ALISA TENNENBAUM Beit HerutThe writer is director of the Kindertransport Organization in Israel.Blissfully unawareConcerning the excellent “Report on PA education system shows widespread glorification of terrorism” (July 22), the American and Israeli governments act as if they are not aware of this worrying phenomenon even though our agency asked them why they rendered assistance to the Palestinian Authority education system, which runs a war curriculum that our experts have examined.Spokespeople of the US State Department informed us that the US has reviewed PA textbooks, which are also used in US-funded UNRWA schools.They said that the conclusion was that these textbooks met standards of peace advocacy and neutrality.Meanwhile, the spokesman of COGAT, the agency of the Israel Civil Administration that facilitates aid to PA and UNRWA schools, told journalists on the record that his office had reviewed Palestinian textbooks and found them to be devoid of calls for violence and jihad.It is a shame that the spokesman of COGAT never read the studies of PA textbooks. These studies were authored by an Arabic-speaking scholar, Dr. Noa Meridor, and produced by the Civil Administration.DAVID BEDEIN EfratThe writer is director of the Jerusalem- based Israel Resource News Agency at the Center for Near East Policy Research.Divorced dads’ rights If the “vast majority of single- parent families [are] led by females,” as stated in “Study: Higher gender inequality persists in Israel” (July 22), perhaps this is a result of the fact that Israeli fathers are systemically discriminated against in divorce and custody cases.Here in Israel, children under the age of six are automatically given to their mother, with total contempt for any relevant facts concerning parental suitability.Every divorcing mother knows that she can – without any cause or provocation – summon the police by claiming physical abuse, and the father will automatically be arrested, humiliated, kept at the police station, interrogated, fingerprinted and have his mugshot taken before being released. No evidence is required, and there is no penalty for these frivolous arrests.This is a game that women freely play, often at the advice of their lawyers, in order to break down the father’s emotional state and encourage him to give up. In the rare instance where a father gets shared custody (usually because the mother prefers it), he must still pay his ex-wife child support, even if she is the wealthier of the two and/or earns the far higher salary.Until such time as there is gender equality for men in family court, women have no business crying foul over the fact they represent the majority in single-parent families. A radical revision of the statutes and practices regarding divorce and custody is long overdue.YOHANAN AV-YAIR Jerusalem
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