Letters to the Editor, January 1, 2024: Fundraising promotion

Fundraising promotion

Much thanks for Douglas Bloomfield’s great fundraising promotion for Zionist Organization of America (“ZOA makes Bibi look dovish,” December 28). A plurality of Israelis agree with Mort Klein, while everyone knows that Bloomfield is a shill for the Democratic Party, which takes pride in caring for Gazan lives much more than does Hamas.

He doesn’t recognize that Israeli accolades for US President Biden are merely appeals to not let the UN Security Council harm Israel as did former president Obama. Israel would welcome a Republican who would not need to be kowtowed.

Bloomfield’s rant tells us that it is indeed time to support the ZOA.

GERSHON DALIN 

Modi’in-Maccabim-Reut

Rejection of these falsehoods

In “Four big lies” (December 28), Ted Deutch rationally presents the facts that undermine the case against Israel. But there is one main factor missing: hatred. It is irrational hatred that allows antisemites and anti-Zionists to believe things that are demonstrably false. They actually don’t care.

Would you be able to rationally discuss the situation with a Hamas terrorist any more than with a Nazi? The only way to achieve rejection of these falsehoods is not through education or persuasion, but by force. As Prime Minister Netanyahu has said recently regarding Hamas terrorists, they will either be killed or they will surrender. Only once the Palestinian people have no alternative but to accept that they have been definitively defeated will they come to terms with the inevitability of the existence of the Jewish State of Israel.

JACK COHEN

Beersheba

Legitimacy and purpose

You are absolutely right to opine (editorial, “Stay the course,” December 28) that Israel must persevere to bring its legitimate war of self-defense against Hamas to a successful conclusion, despite any external pressures to stop short of this goal. That means Hamas must be utterly destroyed, hostages released, and the implementation of war crimes trials for surviving Hamas leaders and perpetrators of atrocities.

The first responsibility of any country is to protect its citizens against external attack. A failure to do this destroys the country’s legitimacy and purpose, and guarantees that all of its other endeavors will end in failure.

For almost 2,000 years, the Jewish people of the Diaspora were subjected to attacks, pogroms, massacres, and ultimately genocide. Israel’s 1948 rebirth meant that for the first time in uncounted generations, Jews had a country of their own which could and did protect them against such attacks.

All of this will be endangered if Hamas is allowed to survive. Its leaders have promised to launch more October 7-type massacres of Israelis. Israel’s Middle East foes will be inspired to redouble their efforts to destroy the country, as deterrence will have taken a major blow. Israelis will be bereft of any sense of safety or security. Jews in the Diaspora will know that there is no truly safe place for them anywhere.

For all of these reasons and to ensure that the Israelis who perished on October 7 and afterward did not die in vain, Israel must win the war against Hamas, regardless of any external pressures to stop short of this goal. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Israel’s goal must be “victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

DANIEL H. TRIGOBOFF

Williamsville, New York

Above its relative numbers

It was most heart-warming to read “Saluting religious Zionists” (editorial, December 29), and indeed it is high time that this phenomenon was more widely recognized in Israeli society. Although not explicitly mentioning it, I believe that the editorial was praising the carefully balanced set of values which the religious Zionist community has developed and is steadfastly maintaining despite the outside forces which have unfortunately held them in disdain for too long.

The percentage of participation of religious Zionist men in the IDF is indeed well above its relative numbers, and I venture to suggest that it would be even greater had the higher echelons of the military not conceded to the liberal-minded demands for what is erroneously termed “gender equality.”

Premarital sexual relations are anathema to the religious Zionist camp and therefore situations which encourage this are to be avoided. Placing a young attractive healthy female soldier in the two-by-two confines of a tank with a similarly young handsome healthy male soldier – certainly for the religious person – is “placing a stumbling block before the blind.” And, if this is the case with the religious Zionist men, how much more so is this a deterrent for the women, and indeed the problem of the haredi potential conscript.

There is no place in the military for “gender equality” and indeed not even for democracy. The army is a hierarchy, which uses people in accordance with their natural capabilities and promotes on merit. There are functions which only women can fulfill and there are others which only men can fulfill. Perhaps this new awareness which your editorial has so clearly pinpointed will help to change the overall picture to the benefit of the entire IDF.

LAURENCE BECKER

Jerusalem

Other images

My apartment is in a military flight path, and since October 7, I have been hearing the almost continual roar of planes overhead and I often describe the situation to family and friends abroad as living in a war zone. The sounds of the planes conjure up images in my mind of our young soldiers fighting on the front and the faces of the fallen, some known to me and some known only by their photos on the front pages of The Jerusalem Post each morning.

Of late, however, other images are coming to mind as well. I imagine what it must be like to know that these planes overhead are not flying to protect my home but to attack it.

I cannot agree with the statement that “there is no such thing as innocent Palestinians” (“The fragile ties between Jews and Arabs,” by Susan Hattis Rolef, December 25). Whereas it is known that in Gaza, five-year-old kindergarten children are taught to chant by rote “kill the Jews,” they are in no way as culpable as the 20-year-old terrorist wielding a knife and gun to commit murder.

Even in the wake of the atrocities of October 7, it is imperative to keep our moral compass. The terror of that day continues to haunt civilians, and we can also only imagine what the horrors of the battlefield are doing to the mental state of our young soldiers, to the point where some cannot distinguish between foe and friend.

To paraphrase former prime minister Golda Meir, while we might be capable of forgiving Arabs for killing our children, we cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.

MARION REISS

Beit Shemesh

Clean up its act

“Replace the Red Cross” (editorial, December 27) points out accurately that although Hamas controls Gaza, “the international community has not held it to the standards of a government.” But why pick on the Red Cross? Can the Red Cross force Hamas to clean up its act? All the Red Cross can do is ask for permission to carry out its merciful work, and if Hamas refuses, the Red Cross has no big stick to wield. All it has is a throat stick.

Suppose the Red Cross, ineffectual as it is, were replaced by a different organization. What means of pressure could that organization wield that the Red Cross can’t or won’t? Would it spy out the locations where hostages are held and send armored ambulances, bristling with rifle barrels, to save their lives? Even if it could accomplish such a mission, which seems to be beyond the abilities of the Israeli army, its neutrality would be compromised; the bad guys of the world would never trust it again, and its usefulness would be ended.

The problem isn’t the Red Cross. The problem is that Hamas doesn’t want to play by civilized rules and nothing a gentle humanitarian organization can do will change its mind.

MARK L. LEVINSON

Herzliya