By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: REUTERS)The true political threatThe Jerusalem Post should consider itself lucky that its competition in the English news marketplace is Haaretz, especially after putting Micah Halpern’s misleading op-ed on the front page of the Opinion section (“Antisemitism exists in US politics,” August 14).Yes, there is undoubtedly an increase in antisemitism and anti-Israel expression in the US, but it is both uninformed and misleading to blame this on the far-right, neo-Nazi fringe lunatics who have inhabited their tiny spectrum of the US population for years. The overwhelming bulk of hate for Jews and Israel today comes from the Left. It is grossly misleading for Halpern to focus on the fringe Right, rather than point his accusatory finger at the mushrooming Left, where the bulk of Jew-hatred resides.Is it the neo-Nazis who are terrorizing Jewish college students? Are the BDSers coming from the Right? Who provides the bigger threat to us – Steven West or Keith Ellison?It is mind-boggling that you could permit such a misleading picture of the American political lanscape.CHAIM ABRAMOWITZJerusalemLet’s bring Ethiopians here ourselvesRegarding “The land of promises unkept” (August 14), I suggest that we bring the struggle to Israel.The number of Ethiopians in Israel is large and strong enough for the population to become more proactive. You have family in Ethiopia? Bring them here to visit as tourists – again and again. Don’t wait for some bureaucrat to decide when they can make aliyah.Demonstrations here don’t have any affect when the object is an unknown face overseas. Once here they are seen, visible. The clerk at the Interior Ministry sees a real face; the judge in the regional court has a real face in front of him when he wants to deport the person.Bring your father, mother, brother, sister here on a family visit and if they are sent back bring them here again. If other sectors of the population can bring their parents here for the chagim with no problem why should you not do the same?If American Jewish youth can come here on all sorts of all-paid experiences, fight for the same right for Ethiopians. Many of the participants in these programs have doubtful Jewishness by Orthodox standards yet they still come on these trips and stay here. Fight for the same rights.Some of these tourists might meet Israel citizens here and decide to get married.When the Ethiopian population first came to Israel, they were seen as weak and subservient, so they got pushed around and down. Today’s generation is in a different place. Use your power intelligently and find ways to quietly and effectively bypass the insensitive bureaucracy and their political bosses.This Holy Day period is the time for family visits.DAVID LUBOWITZKarmielOur mistake in GazaIn “Deterrence against Hamas is evaporating” (August 14) Isi Leibler writes that there is no doubt that in a military confrontation “Israel would overwhelmingly crush Hamas.”So why have we become such wimps?We made a huge mistake by not responding with triple force after each and every incendiary kite, as well as after each and every rocket. World opinion will be against us no matter what we do. So let’s act as if we are truly the strong nation that we actually are. Syria can kill hundreds of thousands of its own civilians and their children, but Israel can’t kill enemy civilians, including children who attack us with the aim of destroying our county?Is that logical?Liebler also says that “the removal of Hamas would create a vacuum, obligating Israel to assume full responsibility for the welfare of the civilians.”Although “it is a nightmare that the government is understandably loath to contemplate,” this is something we can achieve! We will even have at our disposal the huge sums that other countries want to contribute for the development of Gaza. Being in control of the funds, we can use the money wisely to improve infrastructure and living conditions for the people. We can ensure that incoming supplies are used for productive growth and development, rather than towards ways to destroy Israel. We could even return Israeli citizens to Gaza, since an apartheid country is anathema to the civilized world.We can do it!RIVKA ZAHAVYJerusalemSordid Soros historyThe article “Far-right harassment spurs move of billionaire Soros’s foundation” (August 14) omits the fact that George Soros worked with the Nazis during his teenage years in Budapest – and he himself stated on “60 Minutes” that those were the happiest years of his life. I have seen the tape from 1998. I would strongly suggest that your “journalist” listen to this as well; it is available on YouTube.It is appalling that your reporter stated that the Soros family stayed alive during the war by remaining “on the move.” No, they paid off the Nazis.Soros hates Israel and everything about it and his actions also confirm that he hates being Jewish.In any case, he definitely assisted the Nazis during World War II; he stated on “60 Minutes” that if he had not done it, someone else would have.He is no angel. Quite the contrary.ALYSSA A. LAPPENNew YorkNation-State Law meditationsRegarding “The Nation-State Law: A challenge to be faced” (August 15), the writer’s main point can be captured in the one line where he says: “The Nation-State Law inoculates Israel from the vicissitudes of demography and immunizes it from the fickleness of democracy.”This is a silly argument, first because with a future 50+% majority in any Knesset, this law can be toast. Second, this line demonstrates everything that is wrong with this law and its supporters.If we want a survivable Jewish national homeland, we need to strengthen our democracy and embed ourselves eternally in the bosom of the Western democratic family of nations. By separating the admittedly dissonant definition of Jewish and democratic, we have publicly opted to demote our democracy to a hybrid right-wing nationalist theocracy, which was never the Zionist vision nor can that survive in the long run.God save us from our “rabbis” who think they should define my personal liberty as a citizen to conform to their dogmatic regressive religiosity and uber-19th-century-type nationalism.JACOB WEISSJerusalemThere has been a huge outcry about the supposed lack of equal rights protection for the Arab population in the Nation-State Law, but not a word about equality of social obligations. All rights should be guaranteed with no corresponding obligation for military or national service?For very different reasons, the Arab population, excepting the Druse and Christian Arabs, join with many haredim in insisting to receive and not to give. This is an odd sort of equality.SIDNEY HANDELTel Aviv
