Letters to the editor, January 31, 2024: Standing strong

An obscene proposal

In “Qatar PM hints at phased hostage deal” (January 30), we read of the KAN report that “the second phase would include male adults who are not soldiers, and the third phase would be for the soldiers, including the female ones.”

Yet we know that female soldiers are specially targeted for unspeakable abuse. So while reportedly, women who are not soldiers would indeed be released, along with children, the elderly, and those who are sick, in the first phase, how can we even consider leaving the female soldiers to the very end of the process?

MICHELLE MAZELJerusalem

On making an effort

Cognitive scientists tell us that language fuels cognition, or in simple terms the words we use shape the way we think. Lately, I have been thinking about Israel’s messaging since October 7, and how it shapes world opinion. We are now almost four months into a war that we never wanted but were forced to fight after enduring a massacre and kidnappings of barbaric proportions. For close to four months we have been walking around the world wearing t-shirts and holding placards that read, “Bring Them Home Now,” and yet we have seen the world turn against us as if we were the instigators and perpetrators responsible for this horrific war.

Perhaps it is time to shift our thinking. Let us consider, when we say “Bring Them Home Now,” who exactly should bring them home? Do we expect our soldiers to lead them back to Israel as Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt? Are we waiting for our generals to come along on their white donkeys with the hostages trailing behind them like the Messiah?

These visions seem like pipe dreams to me, a reliance on superheroes and miracles. Neither of these ideas fit with the Jewish philosophy of hishtadlut – making a real concerted effort so that God intervenes on our behalf, not to perform a miracle but because he knows we mean business.

I would like to examine what that hishtadlut might look like. In my mind, it would entail bringing our message to those who can immediately provide us with results: the good citizens of Gaza. Those who have housed hostages in their private homes, and those who know exactly where Hamas members hide surrounded by our brothers and sisters. Let us march to our border with Gaza and finally put the onus on those who can, with God’s help, deliver our hostages back to Israeli soil.

It is time to change our message and thereby shift the world’s thinking. Let the Gazans know that their destiny is in their own hands. All their suffering can end immediately: just send them home now. 

CARRIE IDLERJerusalem

Arm of Hamas

Regarding “Israel says 190 UNRWA staffers are ‘hardened’ terrorists” (January 30): It is most disheartening to read the apparent epitaphs of UNRWA, but ending with the argument that the agency is still needed to fulfill its humanitarian functions, despite its operating as an arm of Hamas, and thus cannot be completely eliminated at this time.

What defeatism! If everyone concedes – as nearly everyone in the West does – that UNRWA is Hamas, why should its contributors keep supporting it? It is tantamount to feeding the dog who constantly bites and attacks you. Isn’t it more humane, and in the long run more sensible, to kill that dog now?

Why meekly accept constant attacks? Alternatives to facilitating humanitarian aid to Gazans must surely exist. How about availing of the International Red Cross, or single-country organizations situated within Gaza which can control who receives the aid? Those more knowledgeable than I am surely have solid ideas about such potential alternatives.

If now is not the time to cancel UNRWA’s mandate and replace it with a more responsible organization, we’d best be ready to live with its duplicity.

ROD MCLEODTimrat

‘We didn’t start the fire’

In “Time for a reckoning” (January 23), Prof. Alon Ben-Meir states that the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to give the Palestinians a state. He dismisses the argument that the Palestinians are not willing to share an iota of land with the Jews. He argues that the PA has accepted the Jewish sovereignty over Israel’s pre-1967 territory. He even suggests that based on its own charter, Hamas would be willing to accept a Jewish state.

I am wondering when the author wrote this opinion piece. Was it before the July 2000 Camp David summit when Yasser Arafat was offered, by Ehud Barak, a Palestinian State with about 95 percent of the West Bank, triggering the Second Intifada because the Palestinians could not accept sharing Palestine with their Jewish neighbors?

It must have been written before the horrors perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, when the vast majority of Palestinians rejoiced with the slaughter and mass murder of Jews and even non-Jews who were found on what they consider their land. It is certainly true that the current situation is unbearable, and that the killing of so many people is so sad, but as Billy Joel expressed so beautifully, “We didn’t start the fire.”

But someone did, and it can be extinguished only by those who have turned on the fire of hate. The moment that the Palestinians will have the courage to declare wholeheartedly: enough wars, enough bloodshed, let’s live together in the land of our common ancestor Abraham, let’s stop encouraging our youth to become martyrs and murderers, then will be the time for Prof. Ben-Meir to suggest his two-state solution. Until then, it’s just wishful thinking.

MOSHE ROSENBAUMJerusalem

The world has moved on

Regarding “Not alone in the Middle East” by Elie Podeh (January 28): The article is based on the opinion of two former Lebanese politicians, one a Muslim and the other a Christian. They believe that the Arab world has offered a hand of peace to Israel and they are asking if Israel will reciprocate by accepting the Arab peace plan of 2002.

They do not fully state what the plan really is. The plan basically calls for the full withdrawal by Israel from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967. It calls for Israel to implement Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and for Israel’s acceptance of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with east Jerusalem as its capital. It also calls for a just solution for the Palestinian refugees.

In return, normal relations would be established in the context of comprehensive peace with Israel. The plan was originally proposed by Saudi Arabia and was adopted by the Arab League in a meeting in Beirut in 2002. The plan clearly demands that Israel should go back to the situation before the Six-Day War in June 1967, and then the Arabs will agree to accept Israel. The plan was dead on arrival in 2002 and will never be resurrected. The world has moved on since 2002.   

The veteran Lebanese politicians cited in the article also claim that “the best antidote to Iranian expansionism is a two-state solution with the Palestinians” This is an absurd claim. Iran is the main instigator of terrorism in the Middle East. It aims to wipe Israel off the map, is definitely not interested in any peace with Israel, and will use all means to gain a foothold in the Palestinian state in order to attack Israel from the Palestinian state.  

The way forward is the extension of the Abraham Accords to incorporate more countries living in peace and prosperity with Israel. The views of the two politicians from Lebanon are stuck in a time frame that is over 20 years old. Their ideas have passed their sell-by date and are irrelevant.

NEVILLE BERMANRa’anana