Letters to the Editor June 27, 2021: Uyghur support, Knesset committee

In “Ireland pushes Israel to resolve the Palestinian conflict” (June 23), Irish Ambassador to Israel Kyle O’Sullivan presents a politically correct defense of Ireland’s policy towards Israel. How kind of him to state that Ireland and Israel agree that government should be based on the rule of law, on democracy and on respect for human rights and dignity. 

The truth is that Irish support for the Palestinians is not based on any of the above. There is neither democracy nor rule of law nor human rights in any area controlled by the PA or Hamas. No press freedom, women’s rights, gay rights, freedom of religion or any other basic rights that one can think of.  

Any Palestinian who sells property to a Jew faces a death sentence. A Palestinian who recently tried to spotlight PA corruption was brutally beaten to death by the PA security forces in his own home. Fatah supporters in Gaza were thrown off high-rise buildings when Hamas seized control of Gaza. No elections have been held for a decade and a half by the PA. What democracy, rule of law or human rights is the Irish ambassador referring to in Ireland’s support for the Palestinians?

O’Sullivan’s statement that the images from Gaza last month are just the latest powerful influences on public opinion on the plight of the Palestinians really lets the cat out of the bag. Not a word about Hamas initiating the conflict, about the suffering of Israelis under a barrage of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, about Hamas using the civilian population of Gaza as human shields. 

The fact that so few Palestinians in densely populated Gaza were killed by Israeli retaliation is directly attributable to Israel’s intelligence capability and its policy of phoning people to warn them that a military target is about to be destroyed with pinpoint accuracy. In contrast not a single rocket from Gaza hit a military target in Israel in 14 days of firing over 4,000 rockets. The rockets from Gaza were fired with the intention of causing massive destruction and to disrupt and kill as many Israelis as possible. What a difference in moral standards.

It is time for honesty regarding what the Palestinians stand for. The Palestinian Charter and Hamas Covenant openly call for the eradication of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian state from the river to the sea. Abbas has openly stated that not a single Jew will be allowed to live in Palestine. What more needs to be stated? How convenient to proclaim one’s support for human rights and then support terrorist organizations with no human rights at all.

Palestinian leaders have become incredibly rich and enjoy a lifestyle of luxury at odds with the misery and poverty that they have created for their own people. Hamas has nothing but death and destruction to offer. It is clear that Ireland’s support for the Palestinians is not based on anything that the Irish ambassador stated.

The elephant in the room as far as Irish pro-Palestinian policy is concerned is traditional antisemitism inspired by the Catholic church over centuries of blood libels. It is time for Ireland to rethink its policies.   

The editorial “Israel must stay out of US-China struggle” (June 26) raises poignant points. How could Israel, a country that has risen out of the ashes of the Holocaust, put its economic and technological alliance with China ahead of humanitarian concerns?

 

The rise of China as a global geopolitical power has eclipsed its human rights transgressions of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. What is particularly appalling is that most Arab and Muslim majority countries are more interested in the exchange of resources, expertise, investments and energies to buttress their strategic relationship with China, than in speaking out against the ongoing predicament of their Muslim brethren.

 

Also, in its geopolitical rivalry with the USA, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has strengthened the connectivity of Asian, European and African continents, adjacent seas and fostered new norms of international economic cooperation.

 

Sadly, economic interests are worth more than human rights.

Leave us Alon

I really don’t understand Alon Ben-Meir, who thinks that we should create a state that never existed before (“The creation of a Palestinian state is inescapable,” June 27). 

Palestine is what the British called Israel, and many Jews who were here at that time held a “Palestinian” passport. 

What a lot of nonsense about giving us a state because of the Holocaust. Check your facts. The League of Nations talked about a Jewish state before the Holocaust. And what about the San Reno conference, Balfour Declaration, etc. 

You want to give a state to people who have no rights in this country, whose great-grandfathers came here to find work here, stayed and brought family from whatever country they came from.

Our roots are here from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I think it was David Ben-Gurion who held up a Bible into the UN and said this is our deed to the State of Israel.

It is easy for Alon Ben-Meir to pontificate from his comfortable office at New York University. I can do the same for him from Netanya saying that he should give up his property for the benefit of Muslim Brotherhood and create a “two state solution” in Manhattan, leaving yourself vulnerable to attack from all sides. 

Does he not know that the PA and Hamas will not settle for anything less than the Palestinian state over the whole of the present land of Israel “from the river to the sea”? Where is the willingness to “compromise” in that? I think that is why he does not talk about borders.

Please set the example, Alon, and return to the country of your birth and that of your ancestors, and then, we might take you seriously.

What is it that Ben Meir doesn’t understand about Arab aspirations?

They have refused compromise over and over again. They don’t want a state; they want the destruction of ours.

Why didn’t Jordan, which controlled the “West Bank” between 1948 and 1967, ever consider giving the “Palestinians” a state?

Why,when Israel in 1967 wanted to make peace were confronted with “No peace, no negotiation, no recognition?

Their mantra “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free”” does not bode well for Israel.

Thanks but no thanks. History has taught us that it is not the best strategy to capitulate and become a razor-thin state where we will continue to be constantly reviled, rejected and threatened by our enemies. 

Oh no! Not again! Another professor in a comfortable and safe chair in New York has the temerity to insist that the creation of a Palestinian state will end all the trouble for the Israelis. He buttresses his arguments with untruths and half-truths, such as “Israelis treat them (Palestinians) with derision and contempt, the way the Jews were treated for centuries in foreign lands.” If he has never been to Israel, one could forgive such a statement because of media bias and brainwashing. If he has visited the country, then he must know he is prevaricating.

Do the Israelis go into Palestinian areas with knives to kill innocent citizens on the streets?

Do Israelis shoot rockets into urban areas to kill women and children indiscriminately?

Do Israelis blow up their buses and stone their cars persistently, killing innocents?

Do Israelis pay their citizens when they murder Muslims?

Do Israelis not give equal rights to all Arab citizens of Israel?

Do Israelis smash their store windows or burn their mosques, or make them wear any kind of symbol on their sleeve?

Israel will not perish with a one-state solution; and the chances are greater if we give the Palestinians a second state (they already have one in Jordan). They are committed to our elimination, perhaps as a one-state solution with the proviso that it is a Muslim state. They have been indoctrinated with hatred against the Jews for at least three generations. It will take another three to alter their attitude toward the Jewish people – but only if they change their policy today.

A word to the editor, please at least be even-handed in your op-eds.

Regarding Liat Collins’s excellent observations in “The apartheid label and libel” (June 24) about the Knesset committee looking into allegations of “racism” in Israel, let me tell you that I grew up in South Africa during apartheid. I know what racism is – what it smells, tastes and feels like. If anyone thinks that Israel has even an ounce of racism in its bones or culture, I ask them to contact me and I will open their eyes to the reality of what racism is truly about.

Olmert’s revisionist history

Regarding the latest diatribe by Ehud Olmert (“A New Beginning,” June 25), on the basis that he is a convicted crook who served time in jail, he does not have any right to preach to or about anyone – especially the weekly polemics demonizing our former prime minister.

I am pleased to read that Olmert has decided to take a break from his regular columns and just as he wishes for Benjamin Netanyahu never to return to power, I wish to never again see Olmert return to The Jerusalem Post. 

Mr. Ehud Olmert writes “four days after I completed my term as prime minister and Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in as the new prime minister, my wife and I moved... where we continued on with our happy life.” 

In truth, Olmert officially resigned in July 2008 but due to circumstances did not vacate the office or the house until over a year later, May 2009.

Olmert hardly continued his “happy life” with his wife and family. Instead he was entangled in indictments and court battles until his conviction and imprisonment five years after leaving office. If that is what he believes is “a happy life,” good luck to him as he moves on. 

I hope that The Jerusalem Post will invite a voice that we can respect to write in his stead.

Karen Adler and Ada Horwich (“For Democrats, it’s ok to agree to disagree on Israel,” June 25) gloss over the obvious, ignoring the fact that “The Squad” members of the Democrat Party, most notably Ilhan Omar, have a history of bigoted, blatantly racist statements and lies about Jews, and that Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s defense of Omar – “I think she has a different experience in the use of words, and doesn’t understand that some of them are fraught with meaning that she didn’t realize” – is patently absurd. 

While we must not minimize the dangers of antisemitism from the extreme Right, the burgeoning antisemites of the Left are far more numerous and dangerous to the Jewish people. The Left cloaks their Jew-hatred in a disguise of morality that hides the deadly ramifications of their actions. They say they’re not antisemitic; they’re just anti-Zionist. But the inevitable result of their policies is to lump all Jews together, placing us all at risk. 

Adler and Horwich say they “have no patience with antisemitism on the Left,” yet their only criticism of Omar’s statements is that they “created challenges for the Democratic leadership.” Confirmed antisemites like Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are allowed to “create challenges” with impunity because they are located on today’s “correct” end of the political spectrum. Hence Pelosi’s ludicrous assertion that, “We have no taint of [antisemitism] in the Democratic Party.” 

Omar’s blatant antisemitism should disqualify her from any role whatsoever in national government. Instead, Democrat members of Congress responded to her ignorant bigotry by decrying “all forms of hate,” failing to mention antisemitism specifically or call out Omar by name.

Imagine the justified uproar if a member of Congress made similarly offensive comments about blacks or Muslims. 

Antisemites from the Right are universally rejected and ostracized by rational Americans regardless of their political leanings. Conversely, Jew-haters from the Left are tolerated and often lauded for their faux morality. The former will do harm to Jews as individuals. The latter seek to destroy the only Jewish state and vilify the Jewish people en masse.

While much of the Left condemns unconscious white racism and privilege, they blissfully disregard both intentional and unintentional antisemitism. Sadly, Jew-hatred is an insidious and growing characteristic of even the most polite society. 

“Of history, fairness, and justice” (June 25) is neither fair nor just. It is no “solution” to the Israel-Palestinian ongoing wars/disputes.

The main flaw in the argument is that it supposes to take a functioning state (the State of Israel) and replace it with a confederation of states – two of which are failed states (both Palestinian), and expect to get something better, utopian?

Might one also mention that it’s not a matter of justice, but hatred – we saw recently how hatred manifested itself even among those who already live among us, as Arab Israelis.

Strange idea, bad idea – and there’s no justice in that.

Emily Schrader’s excellent and enlightening article concerning antisemitism (“Jews don’t owe the world an explanation on Israel,” June 22) contains one fundamental error. She says, “The Palestinian state is a political question, not an ideological belief about the fundamental rights of a people, as is Zionism.”

The charter of every Palestinian organization in the entire spectrum for the Palestinian Authority to Hezbollah and all those in between, contains a statement calling for the destruction of the State of Israel and it replacement by some form of Palestinian entity.

The is about as ideological as a charter can get. As long as Israel is aware of this and does not fall into the trap of believing we have some form of political problem with the Palestinians, we will maintain our security and ensure our future.

Cruel vegetarians

Wow! How truly exciting to read: “Israeli startup produces vegan milk from cow’s milk” (June 18).

I never fail to be astonished at all the vegetarians who never make the humane leap to going vegan. For whatever reason, they have chosen to be vegetarian (health. environment, compassion for animals). Continuing to subsidize the dairy industries  (arguably the cruelest) makes a mockery of this lifestyle. Dairy cows lead the saddest lives that mankind could inflict upon sentient beings.

Although there are already a plethora of delicious vegan options for milk, butter, cheeses and ice-creams, it is my fervent hope that Imagindairy will be the final catalyst for a vegan world.

So proud that it is, once again, Israeli ingenuity and compassion leading the way.

The article “Shaked refuses to register online civil marriages” Friday, June 25 should have stated that it was legal officials in the Interior Ministry who decided the Population and Immigration Authority of the ministry should not register as married couples Israelis who wed through online civil marriage ceremonies performed under the auspices of the US state of Utah, and not Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked. 

The Jerusalem Post regrets this lack of clarity.