November 27: Absurd principle
By JERUSALEM POST READERS
11/26/2012 21:58
As a woman who had five grandchildren serving during Operation Pillar of Defense I can only praise your courage. It’s time to stop trying to be charitable at the expense of our citizens and our children.
Letters Photo: REUTERS/Handout
Absurd principle
Sir, – Thank you for finally telling it like it is! Your
editorial “Supplying Gaza” (November 25) was long overdue. I only hope it is
read by those who can make a difference – those who can turn off the free
electricity, who can stop sending trucks laden with food and medical supplies,
who can wake up to this absurd principle of feeding and helping our enemies on
the backs of Israeli citizens.
As a woman who had five grandchildren
serving during Operation Pillar of Defense I can only praise your courage. It’s
time to stop trying to be charitable at the expense of our citizens and our
children.
MEIRA APPLEBAUM
Kochav Yair
Sir, – Your editorial of November
25 points out the anomaly of Israel sustaining its sworn enemies.
As you
so aptly comment, it is high time we quit being suckers.
Withdrawing the
supply of electric power, telephone and communication services would, of course,
result in outcries from so-called human rights organizations, including those in
Israel.
What I propose is that the Gazan authorities be given notice that
these actions will commence after a nominated period to allow them time to make
other arrangements, and that the border between Gaza and Israel then be closed
to traffic in both directions.
The naval blockade would end and the
Egyptians would be expected to supply all that we withhold, which would include
free access to expert medical care.
Of course, Hamas could avoid these
actions by ceasing to receive weapons designed to destroy our population and
allowing open inspections to ensure that these conditions are
fulfilled.
MONTY M. ZION
Tel Mond
Sir, – From one bizarre situation to
another! Israel provides water, food, electricity, medical supplies and fuel to
Hamas, whose charter states that “Israel will exist only until Islam will
obliterate it.” Then, just when Israel has Hamas on the ropes and is in a
position to deliver the knock-out blow, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agrees
to a cease-fire.
How does one explain this paradox? I would like to think
that US President Barack Obama and Netanyahu have agreed that the time has come
to neutralize Iran, which continues to provide support to insurgents in Iraq. If
the intelligence reports are correct, this operation would need to be done
before March or April 2013.
Obama would solidify the United States’s
leadership of the free world by activating a massive ordnance penetrator bomb on
Iran’s nuclear facilities, with Israel executing its share of the assignment.
Hence, I believe that Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman agreed to
the present cease-fire so that all necessary efforts and resources would be
directed toward crippling the evil axis of Iran, Hamas and
Hezbollah.
SMOKY SIMON
Herzliya Pituah
Sensitive editing, please
Sir, –
What anger I felt looking at your front page of November 20! There was a picture
of Palestinians evacuating a wounded man. The story (“IDF hits Gaza terrorists
hiding in media building”) could have been told without a picture that seemed to
say, “Oh, those poor Palestinians.”
Remember the saying, “A picture is
worth a thousand words.”
As for “No wedding bells in Gaza,” how many
Israeli weddings, bar mitzvas and other happy occasions in Sderot were
interrupted or cancelled due to incoming rockets from Gaza in recent years? And
regarding “The man who keeps Tel Aviv safe from rockets,” the article was very
nice, but why was the name and picture of the man who is “keeping millions of
residents of the greater Tel Aviv metropolitan area safe from death and
destruction” given? We should be protecting him! Even the most despicable
criminals’ faces and particulars are no longer revealed in order to protect
them.
In time of war, even more than in times of peace, sensitivity in
editing should be mandatory.
JOAN LEVI
Jerusalem
Be accommodating
Sir, –
Regarding “Dealing with Hamas’s human shield tactics” (November 20), although
the recent conflict in Gaza started because of the attack on an army jeep inside
Israel and after hundreds of rockets had been fired, Hamas stated that the death
of Ahmed Jabari had been the cause.
At the same time, Hamas lawmaker
Fathi Hamed said to Israelis – parroting that other staunch human rights
activist, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah – “We (the Arabs) desire death more than
you (the Jews) desire life.”
It is noticeable that when Arab terrorist
leaders make such remarks they try to make sure it is not they or their families
who go prematurely to paradise, but the poor deluded souls who believe in them.
These leaders are rarely seen, but skulk in hidden bunkers among the so-called
innocent civilians.
I am sure that if Hassan Hamed were really serious,
he could be accommodated.
CYRIL ATKINS
Beit Shemesh
Words better said
Sir, – I begin this letter with a great deal of trepidation. It is essentially
being written in reaction to statements made by two men, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky
and Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, both saintly Torah giants for whom I have the
utmost esteem and reverence.
I feel compelled to respectfully differ with
their joint response when asked during Operation Pillar of Defense whether
people from the South who were under bombardment should leave their homes. Both
answered in the affirmative, saying these people should go to Bnei Brak, where
they themselves reside. In a place where Torah is studied, they said, damage
cannot be inflicted (“Rabbi Ovadia Yosef: May our enemies fall by the sword
before our soldiers,” November 16).
Unfortunately, their explicit promise
of safety cannot find support in the historical record – the martyrdom of Rabbi
Akiva and the plague that decimated thousands of his pupils; the annihilation of
entire Torah communities by the Crusaders; and the Holocaust’s extermination of
Europe’s greatest Torah centers together with six million of our
brethren.
I am troubled as well by the obvious impracticality of the
suggestion.
Is the city of Bnei Brak in fact able or willing to
accommodate an influx of a large group of outsiders? Most troubling, however, is
the negative and divisive implications in the worthy rabbis’ advice (perhaps
unintentional) that separated those who might choose to make the move and the
many left to their fate.
Would it not be far more appropriate for the
rabbis to have issued a declaration that all of Israel is worthy of the
Almighty’s favorable countenance, without distinction of location? Should they
not have been among the first to acknowledge with pride that in fact there is
more Torah learning by more Torah learners in the State of Israel today than in
any other period of Jewish history? Finally, should rabbinical leadership not be
offering a message of encouragement and solace to the myriad of people whose
lives and well-being have been shattered by years of constant terrorist
violence? Should they not be the leaders who joyfully point to the daily
miracles that we witness in our relatively few casualties, and the miracles
being performed through the Iron Dome defense system? Should they not be
involved with urging and beseeching the general populace to listen to and obey
the safety instructions of the Homefront Command? And should they not be praying
for and thanking the Creator for his care for all those who participate in the
defense of our beleaguered country, and joyfully and publicly proclaim that the
“Guardian of Israel neither slumbers or sleeps?”
ZEV CHAMUDOT
Petah Tikva