Letters to the Editor August 10, 2020: Beirut blowout
Readers of The Jerusalem Post have their say.
By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: PIXABAY)Beirut blowoutRegarding “Lebanese protesters storm ministries as outrage grows over Beirut blast” (August 9), Israel’s bureaucracy could well learn a lesson about the danger of unnecessary delays from the devastating explosion which destroyed the Port of Beirut and wrecked much of the city.The Lebanese judiciary was notified six times that the ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut Port was dangerous and customs officials were asked to re-export it. Permission was never granted.GERRY MYERSBeit ZayitAre significant quantities of dangerous explosive materials (Beirut-style) being stored in the port of Haifa?If so, given Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s “We know more about the port of Haifa...” remark and the fact that his organization has more than 100,000 missiles (many of them quite advanced and powerful) pointed our way awaiting the push of a button, we might want to think about moving the volatile materials to a more sparsely populated area.Meanwhile, my condolences to the many Lebanese mourners and sufferers.BOB JERENBERGKiryat Ono“Offering to help Lebanon doesn’t mean hailing its flag” (August 7) hits the nail on the head. Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai should be ashamed of himself for showing solidarity with an enemy country by lighting up City Hall with the flag of Lebanon.R SIMPSONTel AvivThere is a disaster in a country abroad and once again Israel rushes to send help. In this case to a sworn enemy.In my opinion, this knee jerk reaction is entirely misguided. I am not against the policy of sending aid per se – but only if it is requested.Sending help that has not been requested carries with it the suggestion of superiority and that, welcome as the aid may be to the recipients, is how it may be seen by them as Israelis grandstanding. Such actions in the past have not garnered many ‘Brownie points’ for us.That may sound callous, but that is the world of reality.OSCAR DAVIESJerusalemJarring Jordanian injustice“Hagia Sophia and Jordan’s crimes against international law” (Aug 9) reminds us that while Jordan illegally occupied east Jerusalem for 19 years it wreaked systematic, wholesale desecration and destruction in the Jewish Quarter and Mount of Olives, ethnically cleansing Jews with nary a word of complaint against Jordan or in support for the Jews from the oh-so-righteous world, which had just stood by silently during the Holocaust.How can it be that after all that we suffered, we allowed the continued existence of the al-Aqsa Mosque, which was erected on top of our Temple Mount? How can it be that we continue to permit our enemies to humiliate us in our capital, which we liberated at enormous cost in Jewish lives, by removing the Magen David which our valiant soldiers flew over our Temple Mount in jubilation at their victory and replacing it again with the Moslem flag which testifies to our weakness and humble subjugation, making us dhimmis in our own land?How can it be that we are still looking at ways to surrender more of our promised land to our enemies in the full knowledge that their raison d’être is to destroy us?EDITH OGNALLNetanyaMissed the pointThere is a well-known saying that “Israel loves aliyah but hates olim.” I have personally seen, felt and continue to experience the reality of this perhaps hard-to-swallow truism during the 10 years I have been living in Israel, as have far too many of my fellow olim.A good example is the reasoning presented in your editorial “Let them in” (August 3) supporting the decision to admit to the country 16,000 foreign students (the number turns out to actually be 21,000 over the course of a year). Corona is being brought under control in Israel; strict rules can be designed and enforced to prevent these students from importing the virus; these students will spend money here and chances are good many will eventually make aliyah.The article misses the main point in the controversy over this decision. The Jerusalem Post’s readership is heavily skewed toward olim and non-native Hebrew speakers and yet not one word was said about the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Israelis – olim and Sabras – who have parents, children or grandchildren abroad, both Israeli and not, and who are desperately waiting for a set of coherent and logical rules that would allow them to visit. The numbers involved far exceed 21,000, all of the visitors would spend money here, the non-Israelis are potential olim and of course Israelis abroad are candidates for returning home.In its omission of any reference whatsoever to a government decision that so directly affects your core readership, your editorial highlights is “disconnected” from the real issue. It’s not the religious-secular divide (as some politicians claim) but rather: who’s out there putting in a good word for olim once they are in Israel?ANDREA WINETel AvivMuddled by the mediaI was disgusted on several levels by “Murderer of ‘83 Peace activist: Anti-PM protesters are germs” (August 9).The first is that Channel 12 would interview and give validity to a murderer.The second is that Channel 12 would give voice to incitement to violence.The third that the article did not lead with a condemnation of Channel 12 and the murderer but left it until near the end and then only as a quote from an opposition MK.A more telling condemnation would have come from Yuval Steinitz, the Likud minister injured by this murderer.This proves that the claims of the Likud and the Right about media bias – but the bias is toward the Right, supporting attacks on the demonstrators.MICHAEL H. DAVISRishon LezionRegarding “Thousands attend demos against Netanyahu” (August 9), television news reporters have responded to complaints that they spend too much time on political demonstrations by comparing present reporting with the number of minutes devoted to other demonstrations in previous years. They’re missing the point, which is that the numbers of minutes they spend on the crowds milling around in various locations are a lot more minutes than viewers want to see.I want to know exactly what’s being done to improve our handling of the coronavirus and what’s happening in the rest of the world. I want to know what the government is doing in relation to the many problems on the agenda, and yes, I also want some reporting on the local political situation. I don’t want to see endless footage of people yelling a confusing number of different messages. Some are trying to bring attention to their economic problems but are drowned out by the many people who just want to tell us how much they hate Netanyahu and others who come to attract attention and achieve their 15 minutes of fame or because they have no other place to party.I don’t know why the TV producers think that if they show it, we have to watch it. I stopped watching the demonstrations a long time ago. If all the local channels are showing people yelling I just give up on the local news altogether.NAOMI SANDLERJerusalemTwo fine menApproximately 30 years ago, when I was living in Worcester, Massachusetts, the Chabad rabbi’s son was getting married in Israel. I went with a group of men to Israel for the wedding and on Shabbat Hatan we went to the Chabad shul in the Old City. When I arrived I took an empty seat. The person I was sitting next to was a friendly, warm individual. Whenever there was a break, like between Cohen and Levi aliyot, we would talk.I attributed his friendliness as part of the typical Chabad attitude of making all guests feel welcome. When the services were over, the groom said I seemed to enjoy the company of the person I was sitting next to.“What a sweet man that was,” I replied. “He was so easy to talk to and I was enamored with his sweetness and warmth.”“You have no idea who you were sitting with?”Seeing that I was clueless what he was talking about, he informed that for the past two hours I was sitting next to Rabbi Steinzaltz. Whenever Rabbi Steinzaltz’s name was mentioned over the years, I would always relate this incident. Not only was he a great talmid hacham, he was also a mentsch.ARTHUR MILLERBet ShemeshRegarding “Legendary journalist and writer Pete Hamill dead at 85” (Aug 9), Brooklyn’s Pete Hamill was a journalist, author and editor for the N.Y. Daily News and N.Y. Post, as well as a columnist for both newspapers and respected for his political observations as well as sports commentary. He was the author of some 20 books covering a wide range of topics, but for me, his best work was 1999’s Why Sinatra Matters. It was as if I was sitting in a booth next to them in a restaurant listening to Pete and Frank discussing important issues of the day. Hamill had the gift of making this reader read on, page after page. As a huge Sinatra fan, I am compelled to say this is among the best compact and concise piece of literature ever written about the world-renowned entertainer. Thank you Pete Hamill and after a long distinguished career in journalism, may you rest in piece.HERB STARKMooresville, NCWanting the possibleRegarding “Wanting the impossible” (August 6), one cannot but like Gershon Baskin, admire him even, for adhering so steadfastly all these years to a dream (a two-state solution”) based on a fantasy (that Arabs will accept a Jewish state).Now even he accepts that his dream was just that. Certainly a giant step for mankind. Perhaps he will, in time, be able to make the next conceptual step: understanding why exactly his dream and fantasy didn’t come true.Putting aside his percentages-of-land game, which is based on another fantasy (in reality the Arabs were illegally granted over 70% of the original internationally recognized mandate when the UK unilaterally lopped off the artificial Kingdom of TransJordan), the actual death of a dream is of the four-state solution: Israel and three Arab states (TransJordan, Gaza, Judea-Samaria).I have no easy answers any more than Baskin does, but the Arabs accepting Israel and the principle of the 1947 UN partition resolution would be a good start. I mean accept its validity and legitimacy, not just the empiric fact that it exists (the latter being Fatah’s line, neither of them being the Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah line). The arguments go on round and round and meanwhile the reality keeps on growing, that is that Israel despite Corona and everything is a huge success story and the Arabs are a huge failure story.ANTHONY LUDERRosh PinaIn response to Gershon Baskin’s call for a new plan, I’d like to suggest that Arab nations take responsibility for solving a key problem that has prevented Israel from achieving peace with its neighbors: the refugee situation. Arab violence led Arabs to flee or be displaced from Palestine; Arab refusal to grant citizenship to the refugees (and their descendants) perpetuated the problem. Newly reborn Israel absorbed 800,000 Mizrachi Jews thrust from their homes in Muslim countries, while rehabilitating Holocaust survivors, recovering from damages inflicted by the Arab armies, and dealing with terrorist incursions from all sides. The numerous Arab countries, some of them oil-rich, should have been able to take in the fewer than 700,000 Arabs and allow them to build decent lives for their children.Generations have passed and it’s time for the Arab nations to inform the Palestine refugees that the plan (to turn Israel into a Muslim-majority state by overruning it with millions of people raised to view killing Jews as the path to Heaven) is dead. Arab nations will accept applications for citizenship from Palestine refugees who’ve been living within their borders for generations or who wish to move to Arab countries other than those that have been hosting UNRWA camps. “Refugees” currently living under Hamas or PA administration will have the option of staying where they are or opting to become citizens in another Arab country.Those who choose to remain with Hamas or PA administration will participate in a referendum to decide whether their leaders will begin working on creating a state in Gaza and Areas A and B or if they will seek to become a territory of an existing Arab country. By allowing 5,600,000 “Palestine refugees” to finally begin building new lives, the Arab nations will be eliminating the apartheid situation that has persisted too long in their midst.TOBY F. BLOCKAtlanta, GAUncivil speechI was somewhat surprised that The Jerusalem Post published a vitriolic partisan attack on US President Donald Trump (Callous inhumanity,” August 4) by the chairman of Democrats Abroad-Israel.It is expected that a Democrat would take issue with the president and his policies, but the tone of the article was not what is to be expected from rational partisans attempting to make a coherent argument.I assume that the Post will enable a representative of the Republicans Overseas Israel to respond, hopefully in a subdued and rational manner that restricts itself to the points at issue without unnecessary and offensive verbiage.JAY SHAPIROJerusalem
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