Hope renewed

After I saw j.’s somewhat recent full-page ad using blatantly false “glittering generalities,” I had lost faith that fairness and rationality would prevail over mere politicking.

Thank you for renewing my hope by publishing Rabbi Martin Weiner’s extremely pertinent column titled “A call for more respect, less rhetoric among pro-Israel groups” (March 9 op-ed). He urges what I believe has been lacking: civility needed to tone down negative comments and wild accusations from one Jewish group about another. His column affirms that “We all have the same ultimate goal: a strong and secure Israel.” That goal is not met by using self-serving falsehoods about our current president’s policy in order to attract Jewish voters.

Sarah Fagan Greenberg   |   Tiburon

 

EU official’s ‘rubbish’ talk

Shame on European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who compared the murder victims in Toulouse with children who are killed in Gaza. Talk about ludicrous moral equivalence and analogies run amok. Gaza’s Hamas and Islamic Jihad target civilians and terrorize the towns in Israel’s south with rockets and mortars, indiscriminately targeting civilians. Israel targets terrorists responsible in response. To compare Israel’s legitimate self-defense activities to the murder of innocents in Toulouse is patently absurd.

“When we think about what happened today … we see what is happening in Gaza and other places,” Ashton said to a meeting of Palestinian youths in Brussels.

The murders in France were the product of pure hatred, which resulted in the deaths of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his 3-year-old and 6-year-old and another 7-year-old. A 17-year-old was seriously injured. The murderer has also been implicated in other killings in France over the past few weeks.

What rubbish to compare Israel’s military actions in Gaza to what happened in Toulouse. Ms. Ashton owes an apology to the victims and should certainly choose her words more carefully when speaking of Israel’s legitimate military efforts in Gaza, which always target terrorists and never target innocents.

Steve Lipman   |   Foster City

 

Resource for kidney disease

I read with great interest the article about Marc Klein and his seeking a live kidney donor (“Former j. editor needs kidney transplant,” March 16). I, too, have polycystic kidney disease, although I fortunately am not at stage 5.

The PKD Foundation has been a great help to me for support and information about the disease. According to the foundation, PKD affects an estimated 1 in 500 people. This translates to over 14,000 people in the Bay Area, many of whom are in the same situation as Mr. Klein.

The PKD Foundation’s website is at www.pkdcure.org for those readers interested in finding out more. The San Francisco chapter has local educational and support meetings as well as an annual walk. Its website is www.pkdcure.org/tabid/833/default.aspx.

David Kaskowitz   |   San Francisco

 

Shrugging off deadly force?

The Israel Security Agency’s website provides information on terror attacks against Israel. I noticed in January and February of this year, Palestinian terror groups launched 45 deadly rockets from Gaza at Israelis. This does not include the additional scores of mortars and other attacks on Israel during this period.

Can you imagine having 45 rockets explode with deadly force near your children? These attacks were during “quiet” times along the Gaza border. It’s like Oakland firing rockets and they would explode anywhere from San Francisco to Palo Alto. I’m sure we’d do more than shrug our shoulders. But I guess we don’t have a significant portion of the world wanting us to cease to exist.

In what is being reported as a response to Israel taking out two bin Laden types in Gaza, the Palestinians have launched a huge array of rockets at over a million Israeli civilians. Israel is being painted as the aggressor and asked to show restraint. What would we do?

Did the 21st century reincarnation of Nazi Germany activate this increased rocket effort to give Israel a taste of what is to come when Israel destroys the Iranian covert nuclear weaponization program? Probably.

Howard Roth   |   South San Francisco

 

A call for open debate

Last week, Jewish Voice for Peace took credit for convincing Seattle’s LGBT Commission to cancel a planned meeting with Israeli LGBT activists. A group that claims to support open debate, and that screams “muzzling!” every time their extremist positions are found to be unwelcome, now takes the position that Seattle’s LGBT citizens can’t even hear from their Israeli counterparts about common concerns.

Of course, this is the same JVP that claims to oppose anti-Semitism, yet partners with Sabeel, a Palestinian Christian group that attacks the Jewish religion directly and promotes a replacement theology that teaches that Christianity has superseded a now irrelevant Judaism. It’s the same group that claims not to be anti-Israel but signs on to support the BDS movement that calls for the end of the Jewish state.

If JVP really wants open debate, let’s have it in the pages of j. weekly. Let’s sit down and have the reporters and editors ask hard questions. Let the public see our answers side by side. You can even try to explain your support of Sabeel, your muzzling of Israeli voices and your support of BDS.

Michael Harris   |  San Rafael