Letters to the Editor January 13, 2021: Absurd Arab allegations

Readers of The Jerusalem Post have their say.

JANUARY 12, 2021 20:37

Letters (photo credit: PIXABAY) — Letters

(photo credit: PIXABAY)

Absurd Arab allegations

Regarding “PA: Israel must provide vaccines to Palestinians” (January 11), the PA receives hundreds of millions of dollars from willfully blind NGOs, European countries and the United Nations – ostensibly to be used for the health and welfare of the population, but in actuality used to fund “pay for slay” programs to murder Jews; for illegal construction encroaching into Area C; and to fund palatial homes and bloated Swiss bank accounts for PA leaders.

Oslo Accords Article 17.2 confers all authority for “any and all vaccines” to the PA. To the extent the PA may be presently bereft of funds for COVID vaccines because it has prioritized Jew killing and corruption, that is their choice, but they have no legal or moral basis to claim that Israel must provide them with vaccines.

With the autonomy awarded to the PA in the Oslo Accords also comes responsibility – or irresponsibility, as the case may be.

Regarding equally absurd Arab claims that Israel is “Judaizing” the Western Wall (January 12), Muslims may claim that the Kotel is where Mohammed once tied his “winged steed,” but there is a problem. The word “Jerusalem” does not appear even once in the Koran, whereas it is mentioned over 700 times in the Hebrew Bible.

Jerusalem as mythical speculation – or Jerusalem mentioned over 700 times? Not really a close call.

RICHARD SHERMAN

Margate, Florida

The Palestinians have a serious problem with confronting the COVID-19 pandemic.

On one hand they want vaccines to be supplied by Israel and demand Palestinian convicts, including terrorists, be vaccinated.

On the other hand they don’t want to express even the slightest gratitude or indication of cooperation. Their hatred for Jews in general and Israeli Jews in particular outweighs their fear of the virus. Their inventive solution: demand the vaccine but also demand that Palestinian or foreign doctors supervise the vaccination. The implication is that the evil Israeli doctors and nurses would jab the Palestinian convicts with spoiled vaccines or the jabs will be purposely improperly administered.

The next stage of their chutzpah will be to demand equal vaccine rights for active Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. Perhaps Israel should install vaccine stations in the underground tunnels intended for invading Israel and murdering innocent civilians?

YIGAL HOROWITZ
Beersheba

It ain’t apartheid

B’Tselem maliciously labels Israel an apartheid state (January 12). This ignores the facts, including that Israel Arabs have full representation in the Israeli parliament, work in virtually all Israeli industries, hospitals, use the same public transportation, etc. It also ignores the reality that “West Bank” Palestinians are citizens of their own declared state, “The State of Palestine.”

But, perhaps, the most obvious proof against the apartheid libel is the advertisement appearing next to the article: “The Haifa-Nazareth Light Rail. Connecting communities across the Galilee and Haifa metropolitan area.”

Haifa is a mixed Jewish and Arab city and Nazareth is populated mostly by Israeli Arabs. That sounds like integration marked by impartiality.

Like all countries, Israel has majority-minority challenges, but it ain’t apartheid.

BARRY LYNN
Efrat

Explosive topic

Nadav Tamir (“Restoring the nuke pact is in Israel’s interest,” January 7) has put forward the idea that it is in Israel’s interest that America, under the Biden Administration, should return to the JCPOA agreement with Iran.

That agreement with Iran achieved the exact opposite of what it initially set out to achieve. Instead of ending Iran’s nuclear bomb capabilities, it allows Iran to develop the knowhow to build nuclear bombs and to legally build nuclear weapons once the sunset clause has been reached in the extremely near future. The agreement lifted sanctions on Iran and provided an immediate transfer of billions of dollars to Iran, part of which was provided in cash. The agreement emboldened Iran and has been a disaster for the entire Sunni Middle East, especially so for Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Sudan.

The actual Iranian archives obtained by Israel clearly show that Iran is determined to obtain nuclear weapons using whatever means necessary. Deception is part of Iran’s strategy. History is full of agreements that were abrogated when one side decided to no longer be bound by what they had agreed to. Iran is a serial liar when it comes to complying with agreements.

There is no logic in providing assistance to Iran in order for it to achieve its stated objective of wiping Israel off the map. Any lifting of sanctions will enrich Iran and result in more support for Hezbollah and Hamas. It is absolutely not in Israel’s interest that sanctions be lifted on Iran.

NEVILLE BERMAN
Ra’anana

Impeach your columnist

I would like to register my vote to remove or impeach Jeff Barak (“Impeach Trump, vote Bibi out,” January 11) from the writers pool of The Jerusalem Post! His hate-filled screeds are really too much to take. Can he not get it through his head that there are tens of millions of Americans (many of us living here as well) who believe the abundant evidence that there was rampant fraud and unconstitutional behavior that made it seem as though President-elect Joe Biden fairly won the election?

I’m not even going to ask whether Barak actually heard President Donald Trump’s speech to the hundreds of thousands of supporters at the Save America Rally last Wednesday, because clearly he did not if he can claim that the president actively incited the mob that behaved so deplorably and attacked the Capitol building.

Millions of us actually listen to the news from all sides and reach educated conclusions that are the opposite of those Barak has swallowed from The New York Times and similar anti-Trump media. And then he turns to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with such outrageous statements as the claim that it was Netanyahu who created the atmosphere in which Rabin could be assassinated! If the writer truly believes in democracy, then he has to accept that, according to the Israeli system, Netanyahu is the duly elected prime minister chosen by the people.

Honestly, I read the article to give it a fair chance, but it was worse than painful to read such hostile and falsehood-laden rhetoric. No respectable newspaper should give prominent – or any – place to this writer. Perhaps he was more reasonable and fair-minded when he served as the Post’s editor-in-chief, but at this point he seems to have lost all sense of clear-headed rationality.

DEBORAH BUCKMAN
Tzur Hadassah

My eye caught the disgusting headline this morning of a former editor of your newspaper: “Impeach Trump, vote Bibi out.”

With this article, The Jerusalem Post, which for many around the world serves as a window into our beloved country, has gone over the line of decency. I will only point out two repugnant statements that just blew my mind:

“Netanyahu is responsible for 3,500 people who have died from corona,” says Jeff Barak. What about all those people who, had they lived in the UK or the USA (or in any of the 60 countries that have higher death rates than we do) would have been dead long ago? Israel has a rate of corona deaths of one-third of these other countries. So, instead of praise, we get distorted facts which fit the writer’s left-wing agenda.

A greater affront to all your readers is difficult to imagine with the baseless and ruthless denial by your writer of the credit that should go to Netanyahu for getting all the vaccines over here, ahead of all other countries. Is this what Barak means when he says that Netanyahu puts his own interest before that of the Israeli public? Well, I have no doubt that only Netanyahu could have done that – there is no one else who has that persuasive and diplomatic ability in our country who comes up even to the level of his shoulders.

Where is the recognition for the unprecedented international diplomatic achievements of Netanyahu? For the esteem in which the countries of the world now hold us? For the fact that seven international leaders have asked for an on-line seminar with our prime minister to learn from him how to run a country.

Each time I look at the Barak article, in each and every paragraph, my shackles rise in anger at the blind undisguised hatred that oozes from his pen.

“Netanyahu at the Jerusalem District Court flanked by his pack of sycophantic Likud ministers…..” Well really, that is just the limit.

Why don’t your writers reflect on the impression that their articles make on our friends (and more so on our enemies) overseas?

LAURENCE BECKER
Jerusalem

The urge to purge

Regarding “The great purge” (January 12), this is the greatest threat to democracy in the US that we are facing, not the riot at the US Capitol.

Whether you like him personally or not, US President Donald Trump is the chosen leader of a US population segment with a valid political perspective. The Democrats say their anger is about Trump urging his extreme right-wing supporters to stage a coup (it was an imprudent mass political demonstration at a sacred institution without a permit that got out of control and turned into a riotous break-in into the US Capitol, but it was not an insurrection). But it is also an excuse to continue suppressing the issues that the majority of Trump’s supporters feel strongly about.

By trying to silence and discredit Trump, the Democrats are also trying to silence that whole population segment (as in cancel culture). That, combined with the Democrats’ tolerance for left-wing extremists, will result in right-wing extremists accepting the challenge to fight it out in the streets with a Democratic-run government. The Democrats in the US are setting us up for a real insurrection.

I predict that we are going to miss Trump. What follows could be even worse. I’d like patriotic politicians from the Republicans and Democrats to form a new center party, but I don’t see it happening.

BARRY LEONARD WERNER
Netanya

For one brief hopeful moment all Americans were united in condemning the reprehensible violence at the Capitol. And then the hope was torn asunder by the vindictive rush to impeach the outgoing president with no thought given to the resulting damage to the country. (“US House Dems to present articles of impeachment,” January 11). The blatant (and very possibly unconstitutional) attempt to prevent US President Donald Trump from running again in four years demonstrates the Democrats’ fear of the Trump movement.

Add to this the concerted effort to silence, intimidate and punish all Trump supporters, including members of Congress and members of the administration. Senators who dared to ask for the establishment of a commission to examine possible election irregularities are being hounded out of office.

Most shockingly, tech giants have frozen the accounts of many conservative voices. The tech cartel is seeking to destroy a website similar to Twitter but with a more conservative bent, while others press for the abolition of FOX News. Anyone who expresses disfavored political views risks being banned.

Do not mistake these developments for a good-faith effort to prevent future violence. (These same sites unapologetically host threatening and hateful statements by Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Assad of Syria, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and shameless antisemite Louis Farrakhan.) Rather, the victors are exacting brutal retribution from the defeated – purging Trump supporters, erasing any hint of their ideas, and hoping to prevent the movement from being reconstituted.

This is how barbarians treated conquered enemies centuries ago. It is totalitarianism masquerading as high morality.

The likely results of these vengeful actions are frightening. Far from bringing the country together, they will further inflame an already incendiary situation. “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7).

EFRAIM A. COHEN
Zichron Yaakov

Got the shot in the right spot

As a nurse doing inoculations, I completely agree with Dr. Barrett (Letters, January 11). The pictures printed of inoculations being administered make me wince and scream, “That’s not the way to do it!”

We at Tel Hashomer got instructions to inject exactly as Dr. Barrett says to inject.

I think that the nurses who regularly give flu shots are getting mixed up as to the technique used.

Please assure Dr. Barrett that most of the inoculations are being done correctly, and hopefully those doing it wrong will be corrected.

FREYA BINENFELD
Petah Tikva

I was quite taken by the regarding the relative rates of inoculation in Israel and the US (“Israel’s vaccination rollout has New Yorkers unmasked with envy,” January 10).

This is a fact of which we can be truly proud. None of the traditional laggards (i.e., Arabs and hasidim) are missing this opportunity. Kudos to all!

MICHAEL D. HIRSCH
Tzur Yitzhak

Nation-state? Not for Jews

Gershon Baskin (“You can’t be democratic for Jews and less democratic for Arabs,” January 7) cunningly conflates Israeli Arabs with Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza, those presumably “living under military occupation.” But they aren’t. Almost all those in the West Bank have been under the political control of the PA for over a quarter century; those in Gaza have suffered under Hamas misrule for over 13 years.

Virtually all nations are ethnically based, celebrating their history, language, culture – and, often, religion. They salute their flag and sing their national anthem. In today’s mobile world, within their borders are minority populations, often large. Though fully citizens, they may feel some dissonance, relative to such national ethos. Such, for millennia, has been the fate of Jews.

Now that Jews have their own nation state, those like Baskin would have them obliterate its very essence, not because minorities are somehow treated “less” democratically, but because some might feel uncomfortable seeing the flag and hearing “Hatikvah.”

Far from not participating in the political process, Arab parties have combined into an Arab bloc, gaining maximum Knesset representation. Far from being marginalized, Israeli Arabs are represented in virtually every segment of society, except the rabbinate.

When two-state proposals suggest transferring Galilee Arab towns to a Palestinian state, there are huge protests from their residents. They wouldn’t have to move, but don’t want to lose the rights and freedoms they currently enjoy. Nor would West Bank workers want to lose their jobs in Israel, paying far higher wages, under much better working conditions. Nor would deathly ill Palestinian leaders, despite their loathing for the Jewish state, ever forgo access to its medical care.

Measured against utopia, Israel may fall short, but it is far from being a dystopia for its Arab citizens.

RICHARD D. WILKINS
Syracuse, New York