Letters to the Editor October 25, 2023: The ugly truth

The ugly truth

Regarding “Detroit synagogue head Samantha Woll found stabbed to death outside home” (October 23): How I wish I could say that the murder of the Jewish activist from Detroit, Samantha Woll, is an isolated event carried out by someone merely psychotic; but that would be utterly delusional.

Jewish communities throughout the world are now facing the ugly truth that regardless of the many statements of ardent support for Israel in the two-front war in which we are now engaged, anti-Israel – and therefore anti-Jewish – hatred is rampant. Expressions of that hatred, moreover, are no longer limited to Internet graffiti. Jews are becoming victims of domestic terrorism, and are being besieged by anonymous threats, editorial harassment, and vandalism of public and private property. And Ms. Woll’s murder, it pains me to say, will not be the last.

For some time, police and other security personnel have been stationed at Jewish institutions – synagogues, schools, community centers –  to prevent, or at least deter, acts of violence and sabotage. Few will forget the tragedy that occurred in Pittsburgh five years ago where eleven innocent human beings were gunned down in the Tree of Life synagogue. That the gunman was recently sentenced to be executed was of little concern to Ms. Woll’s murderer. The act, in his perverted mind, justifies whatever punishment he may ultimately face. That there are others with that identical mindset seems more than likely.

It’s impossible to deny that pro-Palestinian support is steadily growing in volume. Throughout university campuses, print and broadcast media outlets, and corporation boardrooms, Israel is becoming cited, increasingly, as the catalyst of Palestinian “militancy.” In these environments, little notice is being taken of the atrocities being committed to men, women, and children. The international public, in other words, is seeing and hearing what it wants to.

Detroit Police said Monday that the murder was not a hate crime, but the fact that Samantha Woll was Jewish and actively involved as a member of a Detroit synagogue cannot be simply coincidental. War has been declared, it seems, on the entire Jewish world and not only Israel.

BARRY NEWMANGinot Shomron

Delegitimizing Jews and Israel

Regarding “Hate-filled anti-Israel rallies help battle for public opinion” (October 23): The hate-filled anti-Israel rallies are the result of left-wing academia and their links to radical Islam.

For years, Jewish benefactors built university buildings and research facilities. Arab royalty bought their way into our colleges by funding thousands of chairs of learning, using them to delegitimize Jews and Israel. They have used our open society to promote hate of Western societies and to promote our decline.

Our universities have welcomed the billions from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and monies from the fees of foreign Arab students.

Radical Islam is blatantly anti-American and antisemitic. It is headed by the Muslim Brotherhood, whose goal is to replace the West with a caliphate. Its branches include CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), NCCM (National Council of Canadian Muslims), MSA (Muslim Students Associations), and Hamas.

MSA sponsors BDS (boycott, divest and sanction), whose goal, according to its co-founder, is to euthanize (clearly Nazi terminology) the Israeli dream. It runs the Israel Apartheid Week libel and Students for Justice in Palestine. SJP represents Hamas on campus. Hamas’s charter calls for killing every Jew in the world. There are over 3,000 SJP chapters in America.

Pro-Palestinian rallies have the aims of destroying Israel and terrorizing Jewish students. Jews used to be prominent in academia. Now Jewish professors and conservatives have become rare.

The Algemeiner’s List of the US and Canada’s Worst Campuses for Jewish Students names Columbia, Vassar, University of Toronto, McGill, and University of Chicago as the most shameful.

The irony is that the Palestinian issue is Russian propaganda. During the British Mandate for Palestine, the Arab population doubled due to British duplicity and the Arab leadership, headed by Nazi war criminal, Haj Amin al-Husseini, a son of the wealthiest Arab family, which encouraged Arab immigration and restricted Jewish entry.

Only Jews were called Palestinians until the Soviet KGB and Egypt created the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) in 1964 to limit American influence in the Middle East. There was never a state of Palestine, nor an Arab Palestinian people ever.

The Mandate Arabs were Nazi sympathizers during World War II and too many still are.

LEN BENNETTOttawa

Who is running this war?

On October 23, one of your front-page headlines reads: “Second aid convoy enters Gaza as humanitarian crisis deepens.” Totally incredible; who is running this war? Not the recently-formed Israeli war cabinet; no, it’s President Biden and his administration.

They are the ones forcing Israel, against its will, to permit the aid trucks to go through the Rafah crossing, even though Hamas is still holding 220 hostages, even after Monday night’s release. So Israel gave in.

Furthermore, President Biden said that in order to help more civilian inhabitants of Gaza to move south to safer grounds, Israel should postpone the entry of its soldiers. What about the safety of the Israeli soldiers, among them my grandchildren, who will be faced with a larger quantity of mines placed by the terrorists as they enter Gaza? Again Israel gave in; it’s totally disgusting!

I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu should resign immediately for his abundant failures, even though I am a right-wing voter. The problem is we have no one good to replace him. We need a Churchill and there  is no one on the horizon. I will continue saying Tehillim and giving tzedaka, and hopefully Hashem will hear me.

HANNAH GERSHONJerusalem

I have been having bouts of déjà vu lately. Ever since that first siren on Simchat Torah, when I was directed into our synagogue shelter, memories of more than a half-century ago keep flashing in my mind.

I remember as a tiny child in New York City during World War Two, maybe in nursery or kindergarten, bringing kitchen chair pads to school, where, on the sound of a siren, we were all supposed to line up in the hall, sit down, and put our heads down in our hands, as part of a drill. We children were issued tiny dog tags which, although we could not yet read, contained our names and date of birth.

At home, we had “blackout” drills every night where we had to cover all the windows; my father was the air raid drill captain and we were meticulous about this.

In later years, when I could already read, I remember the big posters in our school auditorium saying “loose lips sink ships,” and being terrified that somehow I would say the wrong thing and cause harm to our soldiers and sailors.

The radio would be turned on to the news all day. The grown-ups huddled around it, and would talk in hushed tones.

I don’t remember anyone explaining to me about what was happening. We children just absorbed it almost by osmosis.  My uncles went off to war, one by one, and I remember conversations about what they could eat in the army.

New York City was not a war zone, but decades later, I can still feel the tension and fright in the air.

Now living in Israel, I can just imagine what it must be like for the children of this country these days, especially the children in the South who have been relocated, to be experiencing the realities of life and death all around them. Decades ago, there was little knowledge of the effect of trauma on children, but today we must be cognizant of the emotional impact on our youth, and of their needs which will last long after the present crisis has hopefully long passed.

MARION REISSBeit Shemesh

Funding murder and mayhem

The Jerusalem Post correctly called out US President Biden’s naivety and wrongheadedness (“What Biden gets... and doesn’t,” October 22). The president continues to advocate for a two-state solution. But there’s so much more he doesn’t get.

His last speech on Israel and the current situation showed just how clueless he is. He started off by saying that you can’t let dictators and despots get away with anything because it emboldens them to do even worse. Yet, this is the same man who refuses to call out Iran and has, through so many means, funded the murdering ayatollahs.

He breaks US law everyday by ignoring the Taylor Force Act and by not enforcing sanctions against the Iranian regime to the tune of billions of dollars in oil revenue. He, in effect, is running international interference for these killers so they can afford to keep funding murder and mayhem through their proxies.

Biden is funding Israel’s enemies, America’s enemies, and even Ukraine’s enemies, since Iran funnels money and weapons to Russia.

ALLAN KANDEL

Los Angeles

The conclusion is clear

Although attention is focused, and rightly so, on recovering the hostages (“Hamas releases two more hostages,” October 24) and destroying Hamas (“IDF training for invasion intensifies,” same date), it is essential that we have a plan for the day after.

Any scenario that leaves Hamas in a position to resume control of Gaza is obviously a non-starter. That includes returning Gaza to the PA. In 2007, the PA lost control of Gaza to Hamas. As Albert Einstein would remark, repeating the same thing and expecting a different result is insanity. Hence other options must be considered. The UN is unacceptable; it is completely corrupt and unreliable. We have seen how effectively it worked in Lebanon which is now run by Hezbollah, a terrorist organization effectively supported and controlled by the vicious dictatorship in Iran.

Handing Gaza over to Egypt or even Jordan would be a solution with which we could live, but it is extremely unlikely that either would take on such a responsibility. Another alternative that we could tolerate would be allowing a Western nation to accept the responsibility for controlling Gaza.

Britain, France, the US, or even Germany have a history of colonialism and have the ability to ensure that Gaza would no longer fall under the control of a terrorist regime. However it is highly unlikely that any Western country today would be willing to risk being labeled as a colonizer.

The conclusion is clear; Israel has to control Gaza. This will be presented as a temporary solution. However we must be prepared to deal with this “temporary” solution for as long as it takes, which realistically means something like 20 to 40 years.

As Gaza will likely be completely destroyed, and in any case, has no tradition of industry, the cost will be immense. However Israel need not accept any of these costs which must be financed by the international community, which is so concerned about “poor Palestinians” when they are busy murdering Jews, let them show equal concern for poor Palestinians when rebuilding Gaza.STEPHEN COHENMa’aleh Adumim