October 23: Joint effort
By JERUSALEM POST READERS
10/22/2012 21:45
If Israel helped the Palestinians gain UN recognition of their statehood, it would become not unilateral but bilateral.
Letters Photo: REUTERS/Handout
Joint effort
Sir, – If Israel helped the Palestinians gain UN recognition of
their statehood, it would become not unilateral but bilateral (“General Assembly
president: Palestinian push for UN upgrade likely to succeed,” October
21).
The reduction of extremism and creation of so much good will that
this would generate would be beneficial to all. But Israel isn’t helping.
Meanwhile, for better and worse, it has also acted unilaterally when need be –
for better, with the UN Partition Plan and declaration of statehood, and for
worse, the settlement creation and expansion until today’s 700,000 settlers over
the border.
The Post’s article says that “being registered as a
state...would mean the Palestinians could join bodies such as the
International Criminal Court and file complaints against Israel” for its
continued “occupation.”
But why is it continued? If Israel felt stuck
with an unwanted military occupation until peace, this would be different. But
instead, its creation of civilian settlements and their continuous expansion
makes it wished-for and deliberate – and further entrenches it.
Maybe
this is why the Palestinians are taking the same UN road to independence that
Israel herself once had to. But if Israel would help, she could turn it around
to serve the interests of both states and peoples.
JAMES ADLER
Cambridge,
Massachusetts
Barack vs. Bibi
Sir, – In the October 19 issue of The Jerusalem
Post, there is an article entitled “If you are Jewish” by Martin Sherman (Into
the Fray, Observations), which succinctly and precisely lists the most cogent
and relative arguments for NOT supporting Barack Obama in the upcoming US
presidential race.
Many of his arguments were on the table for all to see
in 2008, to which has been added a track record of failure and incompetency in
any direction you wish to look. Many have been perplexed by the continued
support Obama continues to receive especially from the American-Jewish
population.
I can appreciate that his call for “change” fell on very
fertile soil although he never defined what was going to constitute “change.”
Now we have a track record of abysmal failure that is again overlooked, excused
and rationalized.
I, like Mr. Sherman, do not have a rational explanation
of this paradox but feel that somehow there is in the mindset of the Jewish
American community a “Republicanphobia” that is so ingrained as to be passed
from generation to generation and is oblivious to anything
contradictory.
Thus, the far-left shift of the Democratic Party is not
even perceived nor questioned by the indoctrinated adherents.
I share Mr.
Sherman’s fears and apprehensions when I think of the possibility of another
four years of an Obama presidency.
RICHARD JACOBS
Haifa
Sir, – I am sure
that Martin Sherman, like me, has come under abuse and insults following his
article “If You are Jewish...”
When listing facts and perspectives that
expose the failures of the Obama administration I have been called a “racist,” a
“fascist,” and a “right-wing nut.”
When American liberals and
progressives, including Jews, are unable to address points made, such as those
in Sherman’s article, they resort to attacking the messenger.
I have been
writing and talking to lots of people about the upcoming presidential elections,
and I have not met one person who did not vote for Barack Obama in 2008 who
intends to vote for him this year.
On the other hand, I know many who did
vote for him last time who will desert him on November 6.
BARRY SHAW
Netanya
Sir, – As a Jewish-American who has been to Israel twice, I find Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s relentless pressure to involve the United States
in an attack on Iran to be utterly reprehensible.
I commend President
Barack Obama’s courage in resisting this pressure. My loyalty is to Obama, my
president, not Netanyahu, and as I see it the majority of Jewish voters agree
with me.
I also know full well that Netanyahu’s supporters in Israel and
the US are from the hard right – the religious fundamentalists and the war
hawks.
Netanyahu is banking on the ignorance of Americans, who know
little of the injustices perpetrated on the Palestinian people, and who don’t
even know that there have been Arab Christians in the Holy Land for
centuries.
I maintain that not only is he a bully of the highest order –
in a league with Iran’s president – his country is not one for Americans to die
for.
HARRY KATZ
Southold, New York
Sir, – Mr. Netanyahu, this is an open
letter to you and the people of Israel.
The people of America love you
and your country, please don’t ever let the media make you think
differently.
Americans are appalled at the way this administration has
treated Israel and you. If you should ever need anyone to come over there and
help you fight against any enemy, I offer my life and services to you and the
people of Israel.
I pray for your country and my own, if America turns
its back on Israel then we as a nation are finished.
Stand firm, sir, in
your faith that God has his outstretched hand over you and your
people.
People like Obama don’t have the slightest idea how Americans
really feel about what is going on, they live in a glass bubble and are out of
touch with real Americans! WE care!
STEVE H. SENTERS, JR.
Ocala, Florida
Religious drive
Sir – I rarely take issue with Caroline Glick, but I think she
is wrong when she writes “Their rejection of Israel´s right to exist is not a
primarily political position, but a religious one” (“Libya, Jordan and Obama’s
narratives,” Column One, Observations, October 19).
Barely 330 years ago,
the Muslims were turned back from the Gates of Vienna and since then they dream
of recouping their losses and continuing from where they left off. It will of
course be easier to do so now that they have forces on the inside.
But it
is difficult to begin this drive militarily when they cannot remove this pimple
of an infidel state near their heart. They would be attacking this little strip
of land we call Eretz Yisrael even if it were held by Christian Evangelicals or
Mormons or Shintus or Sikhs.
And if we Jews had a state someplace else,
it would be getting the same attention as the Egyptian Copts.
ISRAEL
PICKHOLTZ
Jerusalem
Good joke
Sir, – Following the media’s aggressive reporting
on Olmert’s return to the political race, I must tell the reader a joke, which I
believe reflects the feeling of an average citizen in Israel (“State appeal
against Olmert could cloud Knesset run,” October 17).
After Ehud Olmert
had to leave his post as prime minister, an American tourist called his office,
and asked to speak to Mr.
Olmert. The secretary replied that Olmert is
not prime minister anymore.
The next day this tourist calls the Prime
Minister’s Office again with the same question.
The secretary again
replies politely, that Mr. Olmert is not prime minister anymore, and therefore
not at this office. The tourist continues to call the office each day, and
always receives the same reply, until one day, the secretary explodes, screaming
“I told you several times, Olmert is not the prime minister anymore!” “Yes, I
know,” replied the tourist, “but it is so wonderful to hear this message again
and again!”
SHLOMO FELDMANN
Givatayim
Correction: The photo in the story ‘Danino
dismisses Edri for failing to report suspected sexual harassment’ is of Yohanan
Danino and not as printed.