Outside the borders
If settlers — despite generous government offers, in total disregard of the welfare of the majority of Israelis — defiantly refuse to obey the government’s relocation orders because of the great love they have for the holy soil of their settlements, respect their wishes, avoid bitter confrontations and let them remain where they are in peace.
Let them join the thousands of yordim who live outside the borders of Israel in Europe, the United States, Australia and even China (a few years ago I met an Israeli export businessman in Shanghai).
With present good will, let Ariel Sharon and Abu Mazen flesh out an agreement whereby the settlers become Palestinian citizens and live in peace, so much nearer to relatives and friends than their fellow yordim, who live thousands of miles from Eretz Israel and have to fly back to visit.
Sid Kamil | Albany
Israel the target
If ever Iran is attacked, it will make little difference to the Iranians who the attacker or attackers are. Their retaliatory strike will be, just as Iraq’s was, against Israel.
Gershon Evan | San Francisco
Drug tolerance
Is it OK to take drugs? (“U.S. teen ODs in Israel,” Jan. 28 j.)
I was surprised to read that Neveh Zion, a yeshiva for at-risk youth in Jerusalem, allowed a school policy that “tacitly tolerated softer drugs.”
This policy has now been changed with the unfortunate death of a student from a heroin overdose.
Is it ever OK for any school to tolerate drug or alcohol use among its students?
Ellen Tafeen | Portola Valley
Deluding themselves?
Israel fails Natan Sharansky’s “public square test of a free society,” which he distinguishes from a “fear society” in his book “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror,” which was read and recommended by President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (Jan. 27 j.).
In a “fear society,” citizens are afraid to go out in the public square and speak out against their government. If they do so, they get arrested.
In free societies, such as the USA, anyone can go out in the public square and speak out against the American government.
But in Israel, Nadia Matar was pounced upon by police because she compared the man in charge of the deportation of the Jews from Gaza to the Judenrat of the Nazi era, since both deported Jews to places where they did not want to go.
Another Israeli was arrested and put into “administrative detention” because he made T-shirts saying “No Arabs = No terrorism.”
Israel is a “fear society” and not a democracy, although Israelis fool themselves into thinking they live in a democracy. Israelis are masters at fooling and deluding themselves.
Yehuda Sherman | Lafayette
View of Bush ‘buddy’
The carping Jan. 27 critique by Stephen Dobbs of “The Case for Democracy,” the marvelous book by Natan Sharansky, a heroic Jewish survivor of the deadly Soviet gulag, demonstrates the attitude of San Francisco left-wingers to the powerful attraction of American political democracy and their hatred of President Bush.
Dobbs complains that “most democracies are not pacifist.” What nonsense. Was Franklin D. Roosevelt wrong to go to war against Nazi Germany and fascist Japan?
Was Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, wrong to fight to save our American Union (dearly bought in seven bitter years of war against King George III) and, consequently, destroy the institution of slavery?
Both Great Britain and France possess thermonuclear weapons. One reason we do not fear them is that in their democratic societies secret plans for using such weapons would leak out long before actual use.
This Jewish physicist, aware for 50 years of the peril of thermonuclear weapons in terrorist hands, believes America made the right decision to attack Saddam’s evil murderous Iraqi regime. It is time that leftist San Franciscans wake up and disagree civilly.
This Jewish former U.S. naval officer would be proud to be “Bush’s buddy.”
Howard Greyber | San Jose
Strained relations
The Feb. 4 article “JCRC: Seminary’s excuse for Hezbollah meeting flimsy” failed to include the ongoing efforts of the American Jewish Committee Northern California Region on this issue.
The AJCommittee was appalled to learn that a delegation from the San Francisco Theological Seminary had met with the murderous terrorist organization, Hezbollah, in June 2004.
The AJCommittee was one of the first organizations to respond in a letter to the seminary’s president, Phil Butin.
Subsequently, we received a call from Butin and discussed this meeting and its potentially enduring ramifications on the already seriously strained relationship between Presbyterians and Jews. Butin requested a meeting with the leaders of the AJCommittee, and we are currently developing the framework for such a meeting.
Milton Jacobs, chair
Israel Task Force
Ernest H. Weiner, executive dir.
Kelly Ramot, associate dir.
American Jewish Committee, San Francisco
Lethal words?
Your recent pieces on Bill O’Reilly made me think about what I’d learned in a “Win with Words” seminar about U.C. Berkeley Professor George Lakoff’s work on cognitive linguistics and its effect on politics. One of the scariest things for me is to see how tied O’Reilly is to the present administration.
I also took note of Joel Kotkin’s opinion piece and its conservative view on how to deal with separation of church and state. It appears he wants to reframe this debate as being a problem of Jewish sensitivity.
Reading his piece, one recognizes the words of Frank Luntz, cognitive linguistic specialist of the Republican right who brought to us phrases such as “compassionate conservatism” (without compassion), “tax relief” (with no tax justice), “healthy forest initiative” (aka, no tree left behind) and “catastrophic success” (what?). His “anti-Zionists of the secular intellectual left” is clearly derived from the Republican think tanks.
We, as Jews, understand that words can be as lethal as bullets. Other cognitive linguistic specialists in the past have precipitated innumerable human tragedies. Witness “Arbeit Macht Frei.”
At the current U.S. intersection of religion and politics. I’d add to the message “Never forget” another idea: “Pay attention.”
Raymond H. Katz | San Francisco
In love with Israel
At our high school graduation, my classmates and I were asked to announce the higher education institutions we’d be attending. Most audience members were astonished when I proudly stated, “This fall I will be attending the Raphael Recanati International School, the Harvard of Israel.”
A year earlier, I went on a trip with the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay to Israel. I immediately fell in love with the country, and realized it truly is my home.
I sought out a school that would allow me to complete an undergraduate degree in English. There is only one that has a program to receive a bachelor’s in three years by learning in English, and that is the Raphael school at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya.
I’ve been attending for about three months. Studying government and politics allows me to understand and relate to Israel in a way that I could never have perceived. All my experiences have led me to the same conclusion that I was once told — it’s the best.
Jake Eckstein | San Francisco
Bizarre idea?
The U.S. secretary of state went to Israel to promote the creation of a Palestinian state. Unfortunately, she ignored the fact that in doing so she promoted the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Jews from lands which millions of American citizens accept as having once belonged to the biblical Jewish homeland.
The very idea of the U.S. government promoting ethnic cleansing is bizarre.
When the United Nations accepted the 1947 partition plan, there was no mention of the removal of members of either ethnic group from their homes if they lived on the wrong side of the border.
If the Palestinians lack the ability to tolerate the presence of Jews in their state, what is the likelihood that they would tolerate the existence of a Jewish state alongside them, on lands they claim were taken from them unjustly?
If the United States wants to promote democracy and pluralism in the Middle East, then it must object to forcing Jews out of their homes and establishing a Palestinian state bearing a “no Jews allowed” warning at its border.
Chaim Handler | Samaria, Israel
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