Letters to the Editor, October 14, 2024: Placed in context

Regarding Herb Keinon’s “Harris vs Trump” (October 11): Just as we demand that any criticism of Israeli actions be placed in context, it is essential that the statements of this year’s US presidential candidates be contextualized.

Keinon says Trump’s observation that “I did more for the Jewish people than anybody, and it’s not reciprocal” is concerning. Trump was unquestionably the most pro-Israel and pro-Jewish president in recent memory. 

Acting on principle, he consistently supported Israel’s interests and fought antisemitism despite the American Jewish community’s inexplicable tendency to vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party. Trump had every right to point out that inconsistency.

On the other hand, Keinon cites with seeming respect and understanding Harris’s “balancing act – supporting Israel while placating the progressives [in her party].” One must ask where her true sympathies lie. 

Having failed to condemn the many antisemitic statements of Democratic “Squad” members, she herself nodded in agreement when a college student accused Israel of “ethnic genocide.” 

Harris has extensive past relations with the Council on American–Islamic Relations, a Hamas front organization, and urged Americans to have the “courage” never to use the term “radical Islamic terror.” 

She has been intimately involved in the administration’s appeasement of Iran’s terror masters, thereby indirectly funding Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s deadly attacks against Jews. 

She was among the first to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and now makes similar pronouncements regarding our long overdue fight to defang Hezbollah, failing to recognize that this would allow our enemies to regroup and rearm in preparation for their next onslaught. 

She incessantly moralizes about “Gazan suffering,” blindly accepting Hamas’s inflated casualty figures and the blood libel they represent.

While she says she fully supports Israel’s right to self-defense, she continues to push for the discredited two-state solution, an absurd and dangerous reward for Palestinian terrorism, and fully supports President Joe Biden’s call for Israel’s response to Iran’s latest missile barrage to be limited and “proportional,” a gross misuse of the term evincing total ignorance of its legal meaning.

We must not be fooled by Harris’s vague election-year platitudes. As a distressing harbinger of a future president Harris’s policies, she has selected as Middle East campaign advisers people who are uniformly anti-Israel, perhaps certifiably antisemitic.

EFRAIM COHEN

Zichron Ya’acov

Our social services system

Some of the concerns expressed by Yosef Solomon regarding the Israel social work and family court system regarding families at risk (“Failure to learn from complaints: Israel’s Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry,” October 9) mirrored my experiences in the United States.

As a licensed high school guidance counselor, I was a mandated reporter, which meant that I was legally responsible for engaging the social services network whenever a case of abuse or neglect seemed apparent. 

Although I had a support system within the school administration, the responsibility of every decision weighed heavily.

I recall one case early on when a referral needed to be made for a student. I prepared volumes of data, accompanying the student to interviews and ultimately to family court. 

After waiting for months for a hearing, I was shocked to discover, in an overflowing courtroom, that after three minutes the case was delayed for another six months. I later found out that this was a regular occurrence and that cases were often dragged out for years.

The student was bandied about into various shelters and homes, even at one point by error locked up in a state psychiatric facility, until the age of 17 and a day, when the system “let go” of the case.

Despite my professional and personal efforts, I felt helpless in the face of an overburdened and cumbersome system.

It is important that here in Israel we work to strengthen our social services system so that the most vulnerable families can receive the support that they need. 

MARION REISS

Beit Shemesh

Nefarious acts

The sheer hypocrisy of it all, that a peace and aid agency that has been proved not only to have supported Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, but has also on numerous occasions colluded and taken part in their many heinous activities, was considered for the Nobel Peace Prize (“Despite links to Hamas: UNRWA candidate for Nobel,” October 11).

Alongside these nefarious acts, it also promotes anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic teachings through its school curriculum. We know that a future with Hamas ruling Gaza is impossible.

Likewise, UNRWA has proved time and again that it is of the same ilk and must, like UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, be labeled “persona non grata.”

STEPHEN VISHNICK

Tel Aviv

The essence of the day

To all the wonderful staff at The Jerusalem Post: Thank you for the brilliant October 7, 2024 front page. 

From the black masthead to the choice of one succinct sentence on an otherwise blank page, you captured the essence of the day. With eloquence and sensitivity, you presented the current mood perfectly.

VIVIENNE TANKUS

Zichron Ya’acov

Blaming the victim

Regarding “Diplomatic isolation” (October 13): The writer, Tova Herzl, the first Israeli ambassador to the Baltic states after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the former ambassador to South Africa, is yet another example of an important Israeli laying the blame on the victim – Israel.

It’s about time someone told those countries that criticize Israel and impose an arms embargo against us that we are fighting a war to protect them.

If we lose, a dark future awaits the world. Instead of supporting a country that is holding back terrorists backed by Iran, a rogue nation that wants to obliterate both Israel and the United States, these countries are asking for Israel to lose on all fronts and disappear, thus opening a Pandora’s box. 

So, please turn criticism away from Israel and tell those countries to stop taking a line that is sure to be detrimental to the whole world, and support the country fighting for its life and theirs.

EDMUND JONAH

Rishon Lezion