Readers share their opinions on the issues of the day.
By LETTERS TO THE EDITOREnvelope(photo credit: ING IMAGE/ASAP)See the light I have often struggled to understand how a self-proclaimed lover of Israel like Gershon Baskin could possibly take the outlandish positions he does, routinely glossing over Palestinian terrorism and incitement, while excoriating Israeli leadership time and again.Well, Baskin’s most recent comments (“Yes, it is difficult to make peace,” Encountering Peace, December 24) expose his true colors. After mentioning “Palestine,” a non-existing state, three times, as well as the non-existent “occupation” and “Palestinian people” (whom we are supposed to believe are somehow distinguishable from the majority of Jordanians), he states that if the two-state solution is removed, he “will fight for one state for two equal peoples... which will not be the nation state of the Jewish people nor the nation state of the Palestinian people.”Baskin’s love for democracy is unequivocal. However, his love for Israel is clearly conditioned on its democratic institutions.A true Zionist loves Israel and is willing to sacrifice for it whether or not it complies with modern notions of democracy.Baskin has now clearly removed himself from such designation.I finally understand.NOAM COHENEfratFoolish mercy In response to The Jerusalem Post’s editorial about ZAKA (“No kindness”, December 27) I feel obliged to write that it is the Post as well as the Israel Medical Association and Physicians for Human Rights that have lost their moral compass, not ZAKA.ZAKA hasn’t decided “to limit morality,” but rather stood up for morality.After checking five dictionaries, it was clear that the universally accepted definition of morality is “concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad.”I cannot think of any instance where the distinction between right and wrong is clearer than in differentiating between the person who wanted to kill and the innocent person who was wounded. Anyone who is able to see a moral equivalence between a killer and his victim has surely lost his way in the morass of political correctness. Woe to us.As Rabbi Elazar wrote in Midrash Tanchuma, he who is compassionate to the cruel will be cruel to the compassionate.It is interesting why we as a nation feel we have the moral obligation to save the world when this not only goes against the Torah injunction to take care of your own first, but it goes against the obligation of a government to protect its citizens.It seems that Nachmanides, in Deuteronomy 7:16 on the phrase: “Do not look on them with pity” , understood this when he said, “through the mercy of fools all justice is lost.”MIRIAM REINFELDJerusalemI was astonished to read the paper’s support for treating the most severely wounded first, be he terrorist or victim.Who will have the nerve to tell a parent their child died because the medic considered the stabber to be in more danger? This may not be a classic war but it is armed conflict and not caring for one’s own people first is immorality dressed as ethics. I find the this attitude so distasteful that I can only hope the editors will reconsider their position and publish a retraction.SIDNEY HANDELTel AvivA sad day It is a sad day for us and as we enter into a new year and we will have, to our shame, three mighty men behind bars at the same time, (“Supreme Court sends Olmert to prison for 18 months,” December 30). Now our former prime minister joins a former president and a former leading mayor.But kol hakavod to our judicial system and the courts. No one is above the law.HELA TAMIRNeve Ilan
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