Letters to the Editor, July 29, 2024: Absolutely nothing novel

Shaul Arieli’s peace plan (“Israel must embrace the US-Saudi deal and two-state model,” July 28) shows that like glass, failed ideas can be indefinitely recycled. There is absolutely nothing novel in his ideas, just the usual leftist desire to reward the Palestinians for their terrorism and the usual sound bites that opposition to his screed is “messianic” and “ethnocratic.”

His idea to focus talks on “borders, security, Jerusalem, and the refugees” is a replay of Camp David 2000 and led to excessive Israeli concessions which resulted in war. In particular, his requirement that “all candidates in the [Palestinian] election should recognize Israel and the agreements signed with it” is a pie-in-the-sky dream since none of the Palestinian factions recognize Israel as a Jewish state in the long term. Furthermore, to impose such conditions surely contradicts his demands for Palestinian self-determination and democracy.

Also of note is what is lacking. His demand for Palestinian territorial contiguity by definition means that Israel is now bisected. Although many states are non-contiguous, why should the new state have the privilege of dividing the old state? Notably lacking is any provision for when the Palestinians will be generating their own electricity, and providing services to their own population without recourse to the UN or Israel. Nor is there any planning to separate the Palestinian economy from Israel, nor even for Palestine to collect its own taxes and be self-financing.

The writer is a retired IDF colonel. If he had spent half the time he has used on this fantasy in which he shows great concern for Palestinian welfare, to instead prepare Israel for war, the country might not be in its current situation.

KOBI SIMPSON-LAVY

Rehovot

The final analysis

The stars did not seem to be aligning for Netanyahu’s speech before Congress (“Netanyahu arrives in DC amid presidential turmoil,” July 23). He arrived in Washington in the tumultuous aftermath of an attempted assassination on former president Trump and President Biden’s announcement that he would not seek a second term, making him a lame duck for the long-awaited meeting between the two.

Furthermore it was announced that Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive next nominee for her party, would be absent from her usual place on the podium during Netanyahu’s speech. As if to drive home the point, CNN featured her almost simultaneous talk to a sorority group right before the prime minister began his speech. This was in addition to the parade of anti-Netanyahu speakers who flooded the TV screen.

I watched the speech on TV and was impressed with the power of Netanyahu’s oratory and his head-on confrontation with the issues of world condemnations of Israel and surge in antisemitism. I did wonder at the combative tone, having expected a more conciliatory address.

My thoughts changed the next day, when on  a long taxi ride home, I overheard my driver involved in an animated phone conversation about the speech. Although he was speaking in Hebrew, it became clear that he was excitedly praising the speech, as he repeated over and over that the members of Congress had applauded Netanyahu 53 times. His voice rose each time, and there was no mistaking the pride in his voice.

Whatever the exact number was, I was struck by how proud my driver was that Netanyahu, and by implication, he, and all of Israel, had been shown respect and were honored. Maybe in the final analysis, in the face of all the Israel-bashing and Jew-baiting of the last few months, that factor will remain the most important takeaway from this visit.

MARION REISS

Beit Shemesh

Total victory

After US Vice President Kamala Harris’s meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the presumptive Democratic candidate for the presidency gave a six-minute statement (“Harris: Israel will withdraw from Gaza in 2nd phase of deal,” July 28). After painting Hamas as a “brutal terror organization” and describing the horrors of October 7, she then went on at length in expressing her concerns about the suffering of the Gazan people.

What is most notable is what Harris did not say. In calling for a ceasefire and an end to the war, Harris did not call for the termination of Hamas as a military and governing force in Gaza after the total withdrawal of Israeli forces. Presumably that would leave Hamas with a presence there, albeit weakened, that over the next few years would be reconstituted as a fighting force, while continuing to rule over the Gazan population.

Hamas has pledged to repeat its ignominious atrocities over and over again. This war will end only once a total victory is achieved over those who perpetrated the “clash of barbarism and civilization,” the Amalek of our time.

FRED EHRMAN

Ra’anana

Decision time looms

Regarding “Hezbollah rocket kills 11 youth in Majdal Shams” (July 28): When many in the world’s media place greater emphasis on stating “the occupied territories in the Golan” than the outcome of this heinous incident itself, decision time looms.

People on many occasions are prone to compare Middle East issues with the Irish problem as equally solvable. However, as has been proved time and again, when you have an agent provocateur such as Iran determined to weaponize proxies to eradicate a nation-state, there can only be one type of response, and it’s not: “Let’s sit down for a tete-a-tete.”

STEPHEN VISHNICK 

Tel Aviv

Complete independence

In “Robust resilience for Israel” (July 26), David Weinberg very astutely points out that we need to develop complete independence including independent production of munitions and weapons, as well as developing new capabilities such as laser weapons to destroy drones, as well as economic and medical independence considering the growing anti-Zionism spreading even in the United States.

We have to realize the deterioration in the US “friendship” when we see the vice president and scores of members of Congress boycotting Prime Minister Netanyahu in a landmark joint session of Congress. However, Weinberg failed to sufficiently stress the urgency of our destroying Hamas quickly. We cannot afford to let Hezbollah and Hamas and Iran develop their war efforts, further understanding that the US is in a state of lame-duck or worse.

 We need to accelerate our efforts with the hope that Gazans holding hostages will prefer to surrender and release the hostages in their custody rather than be killed by our troops. We need to finish Hamas now and not delay.

SHIMON GALITZER 

Jerusalem