Letters to the Editor August 3, 2020: Tensions, anyone?

Regarding “IDF refrained from killing Hezbollah operatives to reduce tensions” (July 30), reducing tensions is nonsense. The more we refrain from killing them, the bolder and stronger they grow, knowing that we will not retaliate in any meaningful way. The IDF has been rendered meaningless. 

 

It is beyond understanding how we can allow our enemies such a position of strength to set our agenda. Forcibly expelling Jews from their homes and businesses in Gush Katif was also to “reduce tensions” and we now have general Maj.-Gen Gershon HaCohen (ret.), the mission commander, telling us what a catastrophic error that was (“Gaza Disengagement was ‘absolute mistake,’ says withdrawal commander,” July 31). Anyone with half a brain knows one must destroy enemies, not give them land. 

An interesting comparison is made in the article “Take the protests in proportion” (August 2) when Lahav Harkov notes how many thousands of demonstrators, plus children deemed legitimate targets, were arrested at the protests against that criminal expulsion and today’s arrests – or lack of – at the anti-Netanyahu demonstrations. Making a pact with the devil Yasser Arafat that brought us the disastrous Oslo Accords was also meant to “reduce tensions.” That is the story of our life, capitulating and surrendering to “reduce tensions.” 

Has anyone ever noticed anything but stronger enemies with a stronger will to destroy us? Our enemies see our desperation not to fight and therefore see that our will to keep our land does not compare with their will to destroy us.

YENTEL JACOBS

Netanya

Regarding the Gush Katif disengagement, Maj.-Gen Gershon HaCohen and Brig.-Gen Agay Yehezkel are both being disingenuous.

HaCohen states he “had two choices: to disobey and retire or to follow and do it as per my own belief and vision.” Well, German soldiers claimed they were only following orders when it came to killing Jews. HaCohen should have disobeyed, retired and faced the consequences.

Yehezkel does not regret the withdrawal but is only “sorry that people had to lose their homes.”

I trust they both have now read the lead article in the FrontLines section of the same issue “‘What home are we returning to?’ Fifteen years later, Gaza evacuees have moved on but are still traumatized.”

Were HaCohen and Yehezkel ever traumatized by their actions? It doesn’t appear so, even after 15 years.

AVRAHAM FRIEDMAN

Ganei Modi’in

In “American Jews must be included when talking about Jewish unity” (August 20), Ilan Bloch opines that people and groups such as Peter Beinart, Jstreet, IfNotNow now and others in the far left should all be included in the Israeli decision-making process that doesn’t even affect them. He believes that since they are Jewish, they have every right to object to “annexation” because they feel “annexation” goes “against the essence of Judaism itself.” 

Bloch himself admits that Israel is not one of their top priorities, so why should we include them? Bloch knows that most liberal American Democratic Jews have never visited Israel, have little knowledge of or interest in the Bible or Jewish or Zionist history, don’t attend religious services regularly, are totally unfamiliar with the dangers we face and are more involved with Black Lives Matter, which is antisemitic, than with Israel.

Considering all of the above, thanks but no thanks. We will manage quite well without their dubious help.

MATTIAS ROTENBERG

Petah Tikva

While MK Avigdor Liberman often engages in hyperbole regarding haredim, he brings up some valid points about the entry of thousands of non-Israeli students (“Liberman slams entry of foreign yeshiva students,” August 2). 

First, it must be noted that the students include gap-year, university and Masa participants, not just haredim.

Second, we (by “we,” I mean coronavirus czar Ronni Gamzu) should adopt the simple precaution that various other nations are using: Any non-citizen who wants to enter the country must present the results of a COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of his or her flight. Thus, the burden of proving good health is on the person wanting to come here, not on Israel, with our limited resources. 

DAVID GLEICHER

Jerusalem

In “Make peace with them? But they want to destroy us!” (July 30) Gershon Baskin makes the seductive argument that peace is possible because the regular Israelis and West Bank Palestinians truly yearn for peace, despite their mutual distrust and opposing historical perspectives. Hence, when “the people will it, we will make it the will of the politicians, too.”

Baskin presents a highly subjective picture of the current situation. Putting aside whether one agrees with the premise that most West Bank Palestinians want peace (all polls I have seen on the subject dispute this premise), a peace movement generated from the grass roots in the West Bank is far from becoming a reality. In Israel, there is an active peace movement – Peace Now, B’Tselem, Meretz, even the Joint List and many other organizations. However, I am unaware of any similar peace organization in the West Bank.

So until the rank-and-file West Banker gains a voice for peace and genuine peace organizations spring up in the West Bank, there will never be an impetus to change the attitudes of the PLO/Fatah politicians.

Baskin would further the peace conversation if he were to delve into why no such peace-oriented grassroots organizations exist in the West Bank. Perhaps then we can have a deeper discussion and analysis of how both Israelis and Palestinians can construct a viable peace.

ROD MCLEOD

Timrat 

In “Yair Lapid’s delusions about the Democrats” (July 31), Ruthie Blum criticizes MK Lapid for seeing the Democratic party platform on Israel as being a “triumph for the moderates” in the party. She then enumerates further criticism of the Left in general, closing with a specific statement that “perhaps Lapid doesn’t know how to read between the lines in English” and that ultimately it is the Republican, and not Democratic, Party that will be on Israel’s side. 

Blum apparently likes to ignore the fact that PM Netanyahu and the Right not only never “read between the lines” when the Trump administration announces very pro-Israel measures, but basically ignore what is expressly and clearly written. The Trump peace plan was enthusiastically accepted by Netanyahu because of the idea of annexing/extending sovereignty over areas in Judea and Samaria. He and virtually all right-wing supporters of the plan saw this as being an official and open license to immediately take action to implement this one aspect of the plan, while totally ignoring the fact that this major policy shift must be accompanied by Israel instituting and implementing simultaneous and very concrete gestures toward the Palestinians, including the creation of some sort of Palestinian state. 

This totally unrealistic and even delusional interpretation of instituting unilateral annexation/extension of sovereignty was quickly contradicted by US subtle and express conditions before they would agree to support Israel taking such decisive action on even a small number of Jewish communities/cities in Judea and Samaria. Though the Trump administration and the Republican Party in general are indeed friends of Israel, the PM and the Right must stop seeing only what they want to see in American policy statements and actions while trying to ignore, or at best significantly downplay, the less-pleasing consequences. 

Given Israel’s isolation for so many decades, everyone’s tendency to see only the positive when any foreign government says or does something good about or for Israel is understandable. However, in the Israel-US relationship under Donald Trump, Netanyahu has tried to spin every pro-Israel move as being official US policy, while pretending that the less pro-Israel ideas, statements and demands simply do not exist. 

This is not only wrong, it is downright dangerous for Israel’s future.

GERSHON HARRIS

Hatzor Haglilit

Ilan Baruch, in “A Bunch of Laundered Words” (Friday, July 31) manages to use the word “apartheid” against Israel no fewer than 14 times – while oblivious to what it really means. It almost makes one laugh as he writes: “It is distressing that few of us know what took place in South Africa” when he obviously doesn’t have a clue himself.

Only someone ignorant about apartheid, or ignorant about Israel, or with an inherent anti-Israel agenda can use the apartheid canard to denigrate Israel. Laundering words does not hide this ignorance.

No country in the world is free of discrimination. Baruch should not “launder” words he doesn’t understand.

JONATHAN DANILOWITZ

Protea Hills

I was distressed to read Ilan Baruch’s piece. He raised the specter of apartheid regarding proposals for either annexation of territory or imposition of sovereignty. 

I wonder what planet he lives on. Do the Arab citizens of Israel consider themselves living in a state that practices apartheid? Ask the residents of Haifa, Acre, Nazareth or Abu Ghosh. Are all the gainfully employed Palestinians currently working in Israel being treated improperly? What about all the highly praised Arab health workers providing care for their “apartheid supporting” clients? Let us not forget the Druze communities. Are there any Arabs fleeing Israel or Palestine because of “systemic apartheidism?” 

I am convinced that if we were to apply sovereignty to all of Judea and Samaria (the whole so-called “West Bank”) and grant the Arabs living there Israeli citizenship if they wanted it, that it would end the dispute. They would not be deprived of their rights. They most certainly would not leave. They would automatically be represented in the Knesset by the duly elected Arab members who willingly participate in this “apartheid” regime. They could then reap the benefits enjoyed by our Arab citizens who are far better off than most minorities of all types elsewhere in the world. The major problem is that we don’t have leaders with the cojones to do it. The world will not hate us any more than they already do. Everybody will yell and scream and six months later all will be well and done.

MICHAEL FEINERMAN, MD 

Jerusalem

How did “we the people,” citizens of modern democracies, hand things over to Twitter and their ilk to decide on what’s critical for us? (“Twitter downplays Khameni calls for genocide as acceptable political speech,” July 31).

The Jewish people have learned over millennia that if someone comes calling for your destruction, you need to listen to them. Twitter head of policy for the Nordics and Israel, Ylwa Pettersson, calls Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei threats against a sovereign country mere “saber-rattling.” Then how would she describe the buildup of arms by Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, which also both continuously threaten Israel with destruction? Hezbollah has more than 130,000 rockets pointed at Israel, more than all of NATO countries combined (excluding the US), and this in direct opposition to UNSC Resolution 1701, which was intended to resolve the 2006 Lebanon War. Not to mention the buildup of nuclear weaponry and ballistic missiles by Iran, and their characterization of Israel as being a “one-bomb” country. 

Why is this merely saber rattling? And what happens if Pettersson is wrong, apart from her getting a title change? This is compared to US President Donald Trump who was censored by Twitter for calling out looting in major US cities. If Twitter’s “hateful conduct policy” does not see Khamenei’s statement as hateful, then I think that most people would agree that there is something drastically wrong with that policy.

DAVID SMITH

Ra’anana

Regarding “Seth Rogen crosses line between comedy and tragedy” (July 31), a few days after Peter Beinart made a splash with his uneducated denunciation of the existence of a Jewish state, Seth Rogen jumped on the bandwagon. Rogen had one original point: he doesn’t believe in a Jewish state because he thinks religion is “silly.”

Was it silly that more than six million non-combatant Jews were murdered in Europe, or that 1,000,000 Jews were forced out of Muslim lands in the 1940s? I’m sure many of these victims did not believe in religion, either.

Do Beinat and Rogen advocate for destroying all the other countries that have a religious component? I doubt it. They are self-aggrandizing blowhards who feel entitled to engage in antisemitism because they were born Jewish.

Being religious or atheist is a personal choice. Calling most people in the world “silly” is insulting and stupid and cannot be expected to enhance one’s career.

LEN BENNETT

Ottawa, On

Israel now has the fifth highest number of new coronavirus infections per capita in the world, overtaking the United States, according to data compiled by a scientific publication based at Oxford University.

One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out that this dubious record we have now achieved must be in part because of the thousands of people crowding in demonstrations to protest against the rise of the coronavirus and the affect it has on everyone. 

STANLEY CANNING

Kfar Hamaccabi

Due to the coronavirus, the demonstrators and rioters should work from home – and destroy their own property!

S. GELGOR

Tel Aviv

In light of Facebook’s intransigent refusal to remove Holocaust-denial posts (“Survivors appeal to Facebook to remove Holocaust denial posts,” July 30), one wonders if they would react in the same manner if claims were made on their social media site that slavery never existed. 

It’s incredulous to think that Facebook does not consider the denial of the well-documented incarceration and murder of millions of Jews as outright hate speech. The reality of the Holocaust is not a matter for debate and people who promote this utter vile falsehood and must be banned by Facebook. Its time for Zuckerberg to search his conscience, especially while those that suffered the unimaginable and are still with us are still capable of being traumatized.

STEPHEN VISHNICK 

Tel Aviv

I want to tell you how impressed I was with David M. Weinberg’s article on Rabbi Haim Sabato and how much I enjoyed it. I found it powerful and meaningful.

In my humble estimation, it should have been positioned more prominently. It alone made your entire Friday edition worth reading.

HARVEY WELL

Elazar