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By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: REUTERS)Tough road aheadIs a Kurdish state inevitable? As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated, only Israel supports the idea of a Kurdish state (“PM to Erdogan: It figures that Hamas supporters blame Mossad for everything,” October 2).The 2,000-year quest by Jews for their own state was a journey rife with impediments. Even in modern times, after Theodor Herzl, the First Zionist Congress, several waves of aliya and both the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine, which were intended to create a Jewish homeland, there was no serious movement toward independence. Only after the horrific massacre of six million did the world’s powers approve of a Jewish state.Would there be an Israel today if not for the Holocaust? No one can give a definitive answer. To those who deride the question, why then did statehood not happen in the prior decades?This is why an independent Kurdistan is not a certainty. The unprecedented pangs of birth the Jewish people experienced in fulfilling a dream of millennia is testament to the difficult road ahead for the Kurdish people.FRED EHRMANRa’anana/New YorkLetters on letters In reference to the two October 2 letters in The Jerusalem Post regarding antisemitism in the British Labour Party (“Labour disservice”), perhaps the time has come to remind complacent British Jews of the old English proverb: “Great oaks from little acorns grow.”BENITA RATNERNetanyaReader Donya Meijer (“Roman footprint,” Letters, October 2) is right in stating that the claim made by reader Bill Halsey in “History lesson” (Letters, September 24), that the Romans never conquered the British, is false. However, her assertion that “Julius Caesar conquered Britain” in 55 BCE is equally untrue.That year, Caesar’s attempted invasion did little more than establish a beachhead on the Kent coast. The following year, he achieved slightly more, advancing beyond the Thames. But no territory was conquered and he satisfied himself with influencing some tribes in the southeast to ally themselves with Rome.The actual conquest began under Claudius in 43 CE, leading to the gradual occupation of most of what is now England and Wales over the subsequent 40 years.MARTIN D. STERN Salford, UKEver grateful“Looking back to the future with Shimon Peres” (Comment & Features, September 28) well represents the imprint he made on various crucial aspects of Israel’s security and development, from the country’s difficult beginnings to its current strength. He accomplished much of this aided by an exceptional team of professionals, the positive opposition of Menachem Begin and the activism of the Right.Thankfully, Peres and not a few undisclosed others provided the means for the world’s future. For this we must be ever grateful.ESTER ZEITLINJerusalemA bad plan The facts revealed in “Your future: Gas – blessing or curse?” (Your Taxes, September 20) are of such importance to Israel’s population that everyone should read it. The issue is the consequences of the national plan (Tama 37/H) for developing Israel’s off-shore gas fields.To cite just one feature of what this plan prescribes for us, condensate, an unwanted constituent of natural gas, is a volatile, flammable and explosive mixture of benzene, toluene, ethylene and xylene. It forms an A1 risk for cancer and asthma.Condensate from the Leviathan gas field will be processed in a rig “7.5-10 km. from the Israeli shore.” Such rigs discharge waste water back into the sea, and water is taken from this area to feed Israel’s desalination plants!It is appropriate to ask: Why has the text of this national plan not been made available to the public? I suggest that readers who agree that aspects of Tama 37/H amount to a curse convey their opinion to the state comptroller.GERRY MYERSBeit Zayit
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