Letters

We wait with suspense for the “red alert” while the other side goes about its business. Why? It is time we did something about it.

By JERUSALEM POST READERS
Letters 370 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters 370
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Almost clairvoyant
Sir, – Thanks for Jonathan Spyer’s concise and (customarily) almost-clairvoyant analysis (“Fractured states,” Behind the Lines, July 4).
One comes to the conclusion that time and again US President Barack Obama and his co-conspirator, Secretary of State John Kerry, back the wrong horse. Their utter incomprehension of facts on the ground is vividly exposed in all their foreign policy failures and undoubtedly affects and compromises Western alliances and subsequent policies within their own spheres of influence.
The wily Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, behind his Mona Lisa smirk, must be jubilantly planning his next move while the myopic Lady Catherine Ashton convenes and pretentiously chairs continuous European Union conferences that do no more than issue banal statements incorporating neither logic nor serious initiatives, apparently aimed at no more than justifying the bloated salaries of EU officials.
Meanwhile, the extreme Right within Europe is rapidly gaining a foothold within its various constituencies and establishing a firm basis toward its objectives.
GISH TRUMAN ROBBINS Pardesiya
Ancient approach
Sir, – Martin Sherman (“Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war,’” Into the Fray, July 4) contends that if Israel resorts to total war against the Palestinians, it has the capacity to inflict upon them such a strategic defeat that they will surrender to Israel’s will. He uses quotations from the Greek historian Thucydides and Roman general Mark Anthony, from very ancient times, in order to reinforce his support of the triumphalist approach to history.
I question whether this approach can really work today, whether in fact the Roman peace of ancient times can be repeated today.
Indeed, the US attempt over the past 24 years to achieve a Pax Americana by applying its military arm all over the Middle East seems to indicate otherwise.
By letting slip the dogs of war the United States has only brought about greater confusion and disorder, as the daily reports in The Jerusalem Post only too well demonstrate.
Sherman attributes his title quotation to Mark Anthony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. I myself prefer the Mark Anthony of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, about the Roman commander who fell in love with the Egyptian princess whose face could sink a thousand ships.
While I am sure that the current leader of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, would never make such a claim, he does have the beauty of the spirit to work together with our prime minister in order to contain Palestinian goals, thereby looking out for Israel’s safety without resorting to war or bloodshed.
LILY POLLIACK Jerusalem
The ‘situation’ Sir, – The diabolical murders of Gil-Ad Shaer, Eyal Yifrah and Naftali Fraenkel (“3 abducted teens found murdered near Hebron,” July 1) have nothing to do with the Fatah/Hamas pact. They were in the making for a long time due to the continued incitement by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s “peace partner,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as Netanyahu’s surrender to both Abbas and Obama in freeing thousands of terrorists and his refusal to walk away from the farcical and dangerous “peace talks,” even when Abbas reneged on all previous commitments.
Netanyahu refuses to admit that there is no difference between the PA and Hamas in that they are both terrorist organizations with the same goal of destroying us. Even now he won’t stop groveling and begs Abbas to dissolve his unity pact with Hamas and return to the negotiating table. It is humiliating and degrading.
Even now, after this horrible atrocity, Netanyahu cannot bring himself to order the destruction of our enemies and pathetically tells Hamas that either it stops the rocket fire or we will stop it. Once again he leaves our fate in the hands of our enemies – and more defeatist talk from opposition leader Isaac Herzog, who says: “We experienced painful, difficult terrorist attacks in the past and we overcame them, as we will now. That is life in this land” (“Politicians call for harsh IDF response,” July 1).
That is not what our life here should be. It would not be tolerated in any civilized country.
Stop the childish threats and let the IDF do what it is trained for.
EDITH OGNALL Netanya
Sir, – While I sit here in fury at what has been done to the whole of Israel, I begin to ask myself why and what is the solution. I ask myself why we allow missiles to be fired at us wantonly, without hardly a reaction.
That the missile has landed in “open space” or “there are no casualties” is not acceptable.
The world remains silent – maybe because we are! For residents not to go out or having to remain near shelters is not a life! We should do the same to the Gazans – randomly fire at the other side when they fire at us. We wait with suspense for the “red alert” while the other side goes about its business. Why? It is time we did something about it. Now. Let’s not wait for years and years and thousands of missiles before we wake up.
Damage that is done should be deducted from any amounts due the Palestinian Authority.
After all, they are one and the same! Hurting their pockets might help.
Let’s not wait for the world.
Only we can look after ourselves.
GORDON BLOCH Ra’anana
Sir, – In response to the ongoing rocket attacks, Israel should retake the Gaza Strip. Yes, this would require boots on the ground and casualties. The alternative is ongoing terror.
In response to the murder of the three teens, Israel should rearrest all the convicted murderers released in the deal for captive soldier Gilad Schalit, and declare the Temple Mount to be in mourning and closed to all, or at least to Muslims, for three years, one for each of the teens.
L. GLOVIN Boston Condemn this work Sir, – As a public school Holocaust educator in Miami, I am appalled that the opera The Death of Klinghoffer is being performed in my country (“The ‘Klinghoffer’ opera and the American Jewish establishment,” Candidly Speaking, July 1).
I teach my students the difference between perpetrators, victims, bystanders and rescuers in regard to the Shoah and their own experiences. It is obvious that the American Jewish leadership has failed to discern between perpetrators and victims in regard to this travesty called “art.”
This opera can be compared to the Passion Plays in which the Jewish people are demonized for eternity because of the false accusation that they killed Christ. All thinking individuals recognize that this libel resulted in the murder of millions of Jews throughout history.
The Death of Klinghoffer, a modern-day Passion Play, presents Leon Klinghoffer as the “decadent” Jew of America, no different than the “poisonous Jew” of Nazi Germany. In truth, according to my mother, who was acquainted with Mr. Klinghoffer, he was a lovely family man who sold appliances to families who appreciated his honesty and kindness. Depicting him and all Jews as exploiters and parasites brings to mind the racism of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf.
I call on all people – Jews and non-Jews – to be “rescuers,” to stand up and condemn this heinous work. Do it so I can tell the children I teach that when anti-Semitism rears its ugly head, voices ring out to stop it.
SHARON GLUECK North Miami Beach