Stanford speakers bash Israel with impunity
Thank you for covering the BDS phenomenon on college campuses (“When does ‘anti-Israel’ become anti-Semitic?” May 22). Since 2005 I have had a front-row seat to where we are today by attending the anti-Israel speakers who come to Stanford to bash Israel — sometimes its students, sometimes professors, sometimes famous Palestinian dignitaries and sometimes Israeli Jews who can’t wait to tell us how terrible Israel is.
Rarely are these speakers challenged from the audience, making me feel like I am the lone Israel supporter.
To those who care about Israel, please refrain from carelessly throwing out the general sentiment that you are “against Israel’s policies.” Which policy are you are referring to? Is it settlements, the security fence, checkpoints, holding on to the West Bank, refugees that bother you? Please do all you can to figure out the reasons for Israel’s “policies.” Research the policies of the Palestinians, too. Then please go and challenge these speakers.
One more thing: Run, don’t walk to the bookstore to pick up a copy of Tuvia Tenenbom’s new book, “Catch the Jew!” You will learn much about where anti-Israel propaganda is coming from and who is paying the bill.
Sheree Roth | Palo Alto
BDS is rooted in ‘vicious lies’
The answer to “When does ‘anti-Israel’ become anti-Semitic?” (May 22), when it comes to BDS, is “always.”
The reason is because both “anti-Israelism” and anti-Semitism are rooted in the same vicious lies and libels. The parallels are striking: “Israelis are Nazis/ Jews use gentile kids’ blood in matzah,” “Israelis are racists/Jews feel superior to people around them,” “Israelis provoke Arabs’ attacks/Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves,” etc.
The BDS provocateurs brandish these fabrications in their pretense of fighting “occupation.” The “occupation” has come into being as a result of Israel’s defeat of the Arabs’ aggression. Fast-forward, and you’ll witness a new Orwellian world where black is white and wrong is right: The aggressors, who lost the war, now have the chutzpah of imposing conditions and demanding justice.
The BDS movement is not only anti-Semitic. It is thoroughly antithetical to the American ethos celebrating tolerance, compromise and civil discourse. Visit any BDS-discussing events and you’ll be shocked by screams, shouts and attempts to repress any opposite views. It is about time to put BDS in the right perspective and realize that it is simply a propaganda tool aimed at demonizing and delegitimizing the State of Israel.
Vladimir Kaplan | San Mateo
Do a mitzvah, donate a kidney
I was pleased to see J. publish “Santa Rosa father issues appeal to find a kidney donor” on May 15. It was J. that connected me to the recipient of one of my kidneys in 2012.
After reading about my live kidney donation in yet another Jewish weekly on the East Coast, Chaya Lipschutz, an Orthodox woman from New York who donated a kidney herself years ago, became a self-proclaimed kidney matchmaker. She has had tremendous success in matching live kidney donors to those in need of one, in the U.S., Israel and other parts of the world as well.
I urge anyone in need of a kidney, or those interested in doing the mitzvah of donating one of yours, to Facebook “friend” Chaya Lipschutz.
Toby Adelman | San Jose
Joyce Kilmer, honored son
Please note the misunderstanding of the gender of poet Joyce Kilmer by a correspondent in your May 22 Letters section. Although Joyce is usually a feminine name, the composer of “Trees” is an honored son of the state of New Jersey. A graduate of Rutgers College (now the state university), the journalist was an enlisted soldier killed in action in World War I. A street in New Brunswick, New Jersey, bears his name, as did the World War II Port of Embarkation, Camp Kilmer, in nearby Piscataway.
Sally Brown | Livermore
Correcting the recordon early Jewish state
The book review of Bruce Hoffman’s “Anonymous Soldiers” (May 7) contains misrepresentations, inaccuracies and omissions.
The reviewer writes of “British efforts after World War I to establish peace in the region.” In 1922 (not 1919), the British were awarded the Mandate for Palestine to “reconstitute a national home for the Jewish people” in all of the territory west of the Jordan River.
The reviewer also asserts that “Jewish extremists were a primary cause of British government policies and political decisions to eventually abandon Palestine,” yet he fails to mention explicitly Arab anti-Jewish terrorism from April 1920 through murderous riots in May 1921, August 1929 and for a three-year period during 1936-1939, all of which forced the British to renege on their international legal obligations.
The lack of security, along with shutting the gates on immigration, prohibiting land purchases and promoting further partition of the territory, were the primary causes of the establishment of armed Jewish liberation forces. Oddly enough, the reviewer does not mention the Haganah and Palmach groups, which managed also to kill Arabs, British policemen and soldiers and even a few Jews.
He highlights the bombing of the King David Hotel, expropriated by the British in 1939 for government offices and their army command center, saying Hoffman portrays “the Jewish leadership second-guessing its actions, and claims that they planned to give warnings before the explosion.”
The Jewish leadership authorized that operation on May 15, 1946 at a meeting of the United Resistance Movement, suggesting only a 15-minute warning. Menachem Begin wanted a 45-minute warning but they compromised on a half-hour. Warnings included a telephone call and sound grenades, as well as two firewalls in the street to prevent traffic from crossing in front of the hotel. Testimony by Maj.-Gen. Dudley Sheridan Skelton indicates that a warning was passed on to the officers in the bar, but they reacted in jocular terms implying it was a “Jewish bluff.”
Yisrael Medad | Jerusalem
Director, information and educational resources, Menachem Begin Heritage Center
Eucalyptus, continued
David Moss writes in his letter (“Eucalyptus grove, a quite killing zone,” May 22) that “eucalyptus was brought here for only one reason: railroad ties.” Not true.
Farmers planted it as a windbreak. Environmentalist John Muir planted about a dozen different varieties of eucalyptus around his home in Martinez because he liked them so much. (The National Park Service destroyed the eucalypti on Muir’s property in about 1991). Adolph Sutro, philanthropist, engineer, park commissioner, mayor of San Francisco and a pioneer environmentalist, planted eucalyptus and other “non-native” trees for civic beautification and to give employment to many during difficult economic times.
Mr. Moss uses “incomplete science” when stating that eucalyptus “need to be replaced with other trees.” They have been here for more than 100 years, they are naturalized into the environment, and removal of them will cause habitat loss for hundreds, if not thousands, of species (especially birds) that currently use them.
Raisa Chudnovskaya and Eugene Bachmanov | San Francisco