Free the prisoners
How sad it is that such terrorist organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, captured three Israeli soldiers.
I feel bad for them and their families. I hope that they will be released, safely, and be able to go home.
It’s a good idea that Israelis tanks are in Gaza and Lebanon right now. If the prisoners are not released, Israel has the right to go to war against the terrorists.
Israel probably has to go to war against Hamas anyway, because Hamas has to be destroyed.
I also don’t understand why George W. Bush can’t do anything to destroy Hamas and force the release of the three Israeli soldiers.
Paul Shkuratov | San Francisco
Danger to Israel
It is almost a year since Israel withdrew from Gaza. The tragedy of this decision is brought home every day as we read about Kassam rockets hitting Sderot and Ashkelon.
The Zionist Organization of America, for which I serve as vice-chair on the national board of directors, is the only national Jewsh organization that opposed this tragic move last year.
The Palestinians could care less about settlements. Their goal is the destruction of the state of Israel and to murder as many Jews as they can reach in Israel and the diaspora.
I hope Prime Minister Olmert will recognize the danger to Israel if he carries out his plan of more withdrawals.
Michael J. Franzblau, M.D. | San Rafael
Faux hardships?
I could not agree more with media like the New York Times wringing their hands about the hardships Israel is imposing on the Palestinians. It is just awful. Maybe they should return the soldier they kidnapped so Israel will stop doing it?
Jack Kessler | El Cerrito
Knowing history
In 1987, at Tel Aviv University, I encountered a guard at the door of a building. I spoke to him in English; he shook his head. I tried all my other languages: same result. It then occurred to me he was an Israeli Arab guarding a Jewish building and living freely in a democracy.
In 1990, we went to visit Tel Aviv’s city hall. We encountered an Arab guard who spoke English.
If all American Jews were to visit Israel, see Arab families doing “normal things,” they would understand that the existing Arab camps were a creation of the Arab leaders who told Arabs to leave and return “when Jews are all killed.” All this in 1948, when Israel came into being after defeating Syria, Egypt and Jordan.
Some Arabs are thus still in camps now supported by UNRRA — because they were told to those years.
Few know that Israel started building housing for those in the Arab camps, but their “brethern” told them not to leave the camps.
In contrast, Israel welcomed their brethern expulsed from Arab countries with only the shirts on their backs.
We all need to know history, not just listen to soundbites on radio and television.
Arnoldine Berlin | Oakland
New empathy
Ernest Weiner’s June 30 letter was encouraging about AJCommitte successfully engaging Presbyterians, leading to new empathy for the Jewish narrative while discovering that most Protestants were “not the enemy camp.” This is exactly our experience in 14 years of Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue that reminds us “an enemy is one whose story we have not heard.”
Little known is how Detroit AJCommittee supporter Brenda Rosenberg was invited for recommendations before a decision-making Presbyterian body of 600. Drawing from insight of the Bay Area dialogue group, Brenda reminded them: Change is binary — there is a “no” and a “yes.”
To inspire them to “yes,” Rosenberg gave every attendee a list of 400 successes in Palestinian-Jewish relationship-building from the dialogue’s Web site. She urged Presbyterians to think beyond “divest” to “yes, invest” in ways that serve both Jews and Arabs, and peace. The Presbyterians did, as their new statement reveals.
Brenda will participate in another Bay Area “yes” — Camp Tawonga’s Oseh-Shalom/Sanea al-Salam Peacemakers Camp — this Labor Day week for 200 Jews, Muslims and Christians. With 50 already coming from the Holy Land, it will be another success to illustrate what life will look like when citizens engage.
Libby and Len Traubman | San Mateo