Time for a new mindset, Israel
I was glad to see your Dec. 7 editorial criticizing Israel’s reaction to the Palestinian upgrade in U.N. status (“Tit-for-tat provocations impede peace”). Would that the organized Jewish community had the courage to say even more. Israel needs a resounding wake-up call to stop reacting belligerently and start acting constructively.
Here’s my condensed analysis of the situation: Millennia of persecution throughout Jewish history have taught us that we are alone and everyone is against us. Decades of automatic condemnations in the United Nations have reinforced that belief. One-sided criticism by the American Jewish left hasn’t helped either. Israel has been backed into an increasingly defensive posture: Watch animals that feel threatened and see how mistrustful and aggressive they become.
Now that defensive posture has become so reflexive that Israel can’t stop even when it is self-destructive. It is in Israel’s best interest to befriend the Palestinian Authority; that is the best defense against Hamas, and strategy for real peace. Don’t get caught up in their inflammatory rhetoric; remember, they now publicly recognize Israel. Time for a different mindset: Don’t take retaliatory actions that escalate tensions, instead, seize the olive branch and win by turning an enemy into a friend.
Malka Weitman | Berkeley
Echo of painful past
As Hungarian Americans and daughters of Hungarian Holocaust Survivors, we are saddened and outraged to hear of last week’s outburst by a member of the Hungarian Parliament asking for an accounting of all Jews in government for security reasons.
We are stunned that this chilling echo of our painful past, which saw the destruction of nearly 600,000 Hungarian Jews by the Nazis with the complicity of the Hungarian Arrow Cross, could take place today in the context of a democratic session.
That there was not a single immediate response of rebuke by any other Parliament members is beyond belief. Certainly disappointing was that it took 16 hours for the Hungarian government to issue a response of regret to hearing the incendiary remarks of the Jobbik party representative, who even in his backtrack said that only those members with dual Hungarian-Israeli passports were of concern to him regarding security risk in light of the Middle East situation.
We strongly urge the passing of legislation to forbid such incendiary, inappropriate remarks in our homeland that needs to move beyond its age-old anti-Semitic history. We also urge Hungarians of all backgrounds to join together for peaceful coexistence.
Marta Fuchs | El Cerrito
Author of “Legacy of Rescue: A Daughter’s Tribute”
Shara Gemes | Berkeley
Inglorious Poland
The Dec. 7 j. contained two articles, one concerning Poland’s Holocaust restitution for its victims and another glorifying Polish Jewish life before the Holocaust by a traveling exhibition from a museum near Auschwitz. Restitution payments have been made to Jewish survivors from property confiscations in 46 European countries, but Poland withdrew its support from making any payments.
Poland’s Jewish community numbers only 3,000 to 20,000, including those who claim Jewish roots. Before the Holocaust, the Jewish population of Poland was 3.1 million, roughly 10 percent of the population. Jews were expelled or killed after the Holocaust, and later even in the 1960s were “encouraged” to leave.
While Poland benefits commercially from glorifying Jewish life of the past, should it not be accountable for the horrific misdeeds of the past?
Larry Wanetick | Walnut Creek