Jewish deaths once again have no effect other than to add another emergency meeting to the prime minister’s schedule.
By LETTERS TO THE EDITORUpdated: OCTOBER 14, 2015 21:04Letters(photo credit: REUTERS)Wave of violence With regard to “Security cabinet holds marathon session” (October 14), Jewish deaths once again have no effect other than to add another emergency meeting to the prime minister’s schedule. Benjamin Netanyahu has talked and talked, but has largely done nothing to improve our security.Terrorists relish sacrificing their own pathetic lives for their cause but by and large are unwilling to sacrifice those of their extended families.How’s this for an idea – every act of terrorism is met with the immediate expulsion of the terrorist’s extended family to the Gaza Strip. No belongings.Deportation to Gaza is worse than death for these miscreants.This would end the spate of attacks immediately. Guaranteed.NOAM COHEN EfratAllow me to suggest three points that would almost guarantee an end to the violence.1. Our government must declare to our Arab neighbors, world allies and the UN that we will view any act of terrorism as an act of war.2. We must revoke the citizenship of terrorists and their families, including parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. We must cease to supply them with utilities and all health and social benefits. If necessary, we must destroy their homes.3. We must all look at our own behavior and conduct a heshbon nefesh (evaluation) of what we need to correct in our lives – including not to place blame on others, only on ourselves.God is calling us to do tshuva (repentance) by helping one another be kinder and more charitable.AHARON ZIEGLERJerusalemThe writer is a rabbi.It seems that everything being considered to stop the wave of terrorism is defensive.We are at war. In war, the best defense is a strong offense. Demolishing the homes of killers does not seem to work. What will deter further terrorism is withholding the bodies of dead terrorists and burying them in unmarked graves. We and the rest of the world should not have to witness a hero’s funeral for these killers.Second, the millions of dollars the Palestinian Authority pays terrorists in our prisons should be deducted from the tax money we forward to it each month. Give the money instead to the victims of terror.Last but not least, instead of having to defend ourselves against the lies of PA President Mahmoud Abbas and others, it is high time we let the world know the true situation here. If we tell the facts often and loud enough, we might convince some, just as the liars do over and over again.KURT SIMON JerusalemIt cannot be that every so often, an Arab uprising wreaks havoc, takes lives and instills fear and panic – and then, when it runs its course, everything returns to normal.Like every luxury, you can’t have it if you can’t afford it, and the Arab “hunger games” are nothing more than their luxury.Our government, if it is to deter them, has to set a price for their vicious behavior that is painful and costly. Otherwise, we will see this episode return again and again.DAVID S. ADDLEMANMevaseret ZionTemple MountA site as holy as the Temple Mount should be a place of peace and goodwill, especially between monotheists such as Jews, Christians and Muslims.The Muslims are our cousins.They are also descended from our father, Abraham. Unfortunately, though, family feuds tend to be the most bitter, and also the most tragic.God might well be weeping because His children lack the grace to rise above their differences.They are killing each other. And this is happening in the Holy Land itself.It is time for cool heads to prevail.MARTIN ZAGNOEV JohannesburgIt would help calm the situation if the government said loud and clear – in Arabic as well as in Hebrew – that Israel and the Jewish people have no designs on the Aksa Mosque. To claim that Israel wants to “judaize” it is dangerous nonsense and has led to bloodshed. It should be stressed that for the Jews, the Western Wall is a major Jewish holy place and should be respected as such by Muslims.It would also be beneficial to point out that in Jewish tradition, prayer replaced animal sacrifice 2,000 years ago, so all the loose talk about “rebuilding the Temple” (which fearful Muslims take seriously) means no more than a vague longing.If realized, it would abandon 2,000 years of religious, cultural, philosophical and spiritual growth, and Judaism would be turned backwards into a cult of fanatics. It would also lead – God forbid – to a real clash between Jewish and Muslim believers about the future of the magnificent Dome of the Rock, a building that in essence is a shrine to the memory of Abraham, who taught Jews, Muslims and Christians the ideas of monotheism.As a secular Israeli Jew trying to live in Jerusalem despite the insanity and violence, I call for clear, calm and responsible leadership – political and religious – on both sides before we get to a point of no return.DAVID ZOHARJerusalemThe writer is a retired diplomat.Since the Palestinians so forcefully maintain that Israel is changing the status quo on the Temple Mount, why not make it a self-fulfilling prophesy? Keep Muslims and Jews separate there.I propose that Jews and Muslims have the Temple Mount to themselves on alternate days.Christians with Palestinian ID cards could go with the Muslims, and Christian tourists with the Jews. This way there would be no clashes, no violence.JOE FRANKLSavyonIBA English news Thank you for “IBA English z’l?” (Editorial, October 14). It said everything I would have liked to say but couldn’t.The demise of the IBA English news is a huge personal loss in my life. It was my lifeline to what has been happening in and around Israel, told from an Israeli perspective that owned up to infrequent mistakes and explained the other mysteries that interweave through the daily running of this special country.Due to my inability to understand the fast-flowing Hebrew on other stations, my television watching now drops to near zero because the IBA news was a focal point of my day. If I missed it at 4 p.m., I knew I could catch it on METV at 7 p.m.Those of us lacking fluent Hebrew are as deserving of the real stuff as any other language group in Israel.In mourning,GOLDIE SPIELERJerusalemUnbelievable! Subjected as we English speakers are to a diet of unremittingly biased anti-Israel “news” from the BBC, Sky and French television, what do we do? Close down! The IBA English news provided a viewpoint about the Israel-Palestinian conflict that one hopes helped a little toward understanding an intractable problem.It provided a level of hasbara (public diplomacy) that sadly seems missing from our official policies.What message is being imparted? In a world where English is the language of diplomacy, would it not be a better idea to increase the amount of quality news in English? I can still remember the top-flight discussions that took place on the air with IBA news presenter Leah Zinder not such a long time ago.LESLIE GREENBAUMPardes HannaIBA News has passed away.There are no mourners.MICHAEL PLASKOWNetanya
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