Correspondence

By

article created on:

To the editor:

I did not know how to react to the “One-sided view is what is detached from reality” headline in the Feb. 15 Jewish Review (Jonathan and Ruthie Moss respond to Robert Horenstein, page 14).

Should I be upset with the newspaper for printing what, to me, seems like a very one-sided and dangerously wrong-headed opinion piece?

Should I try to argue or reason with the content of this item? Should I perhaps just ignore the whole thing as not worth the emotion and energy of a matter that few will remember next month?

And then I turned on C-SPAN and saw a rebroadcast of a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the Iranian revolution. A portion of that speech was devoted to Israel. And while the language was more inflammatory, especially the ending with chants of “death to America, death to Israel,” the sentiments fit well with the theme of the item in the Jewish Review.

Yes, C-SPAN performed a service by broadcasting that speech, and, while I am not happy about it, I must conclude that the Jewish Review performed a service by publishing this item.

As to the content of this opinion piece, I agree with one point—that Robert Horenstein had it wrong that things would be different if only President Bush had been exposed to more of the reality of Israel.

I have this information on the highest authority, namely a taxi driver in Jerusalem. It happens that I was in Israel shortly after the President’s visit.

“So what do you think of this visit Mr. Taxi Driver?”

“Useless, absolutely useless. How is it possible to make peace with people who only desire our death?”

“But what is to be done then?” I asked.

“We wait for the redemption; we wait for help from Heaven because no human solution is possible.”

What an utterly bizarre conversation: Me, a bearded, black-hat-wearing Oregonian promoting a human-based solution while a bare-headed, clean-shaven Israeli taxi driver seems content to wait for help from Heaven.

As Purim is almost upon us, asking and praying and waiting for special help is a sentiment that we all can surely agree on. May the prayer of this taxi driver soon be fulfilled.

Morris Engelson
Portland

To the editor:

Yes, how dare Bob Horenstein defend Israel and Jews?!

After all, Israel is—of course—responsible for absolutely everything that has ever gone wrong for Palestinians, and is the all-powerful body who should know precisely when and how to engage with the poor Palestinians in absolutely every situation.

No, Israel the colonial occupier should not be in Gaza; oh wait, yes, Israel the inept diplomatic bungler should be in Gaza; uh oh, wrong again, Israel the vicious militaristic entity should not strategically bomb to try to prevent her own citizens from being bombed, terrorized, driven from their homes and murdered; oh my, it’s so obvious, yes, Israel the morally corrupt nation should let people who harbor and support terrorists, and thus bring “collective punishment” upon themselves, have supplies and freedom to communicate and move about freely…

The sanctimonious, misleading and sickeningly condescending pseudo-intellectual letters of Glick, Polishuk and the Mosses should be seen for what they are—prettily worded and seemingly moral arguments that are actually sad apologist, erroneous and shaming statements.

Glick and Polishuk essentially lament that an eye for an eye will never work; while the Mosses say every story has two sides (and yet they completely negate Israel’s side), and they go on about how supposedly illegal homes, built in the nation of Israel within its fully legitimate borders, are so dastardly and provoking. All of these arguments are miserably poor in their logic, if not outright incorrect!

With this kind of logic, battered wives should take the abuse and try to understand the feelings of their husbands; home owners should never build on their property, and instead do strictly as fickle neighbors dictate; and those with bratty children should live in fear of their tyrannical kids, and not hold them responsible for their outrageous misbehavior.

The analogies are perfectly applicable because Israel is tired of being battered by this ward that’s been dumped on her; has every right to develop her land for her citizens as she sees fit; and is entitled to call a spade a spade instead of irrationally worrying that if one criticizes then one will incur recalcitrance, and instead cajoling and coercion are effective means for behavior modification.

I know of no other nation or people who are so constantly and viciously questioned and have to justify their mere right to existence, let alone statehood. This is born out of pure hatred and a desire to destroy the people in question altogether. It is not born out of legitimate concern about human rights or because the land of Israel has real expansionist designs or is so vast and sprawling that it has more than enough to share.

It defies belief how anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment never dies, but what is always more saddening is how deeply internalized this hatred is among some of the people under consideration themselves.

I imagine that Glick, Polishuk and the Mosses are rather older than I am. Speaking as a young adult who was raised to respect my elders, I am disgusted by the attitudes and opinions they expressed in the Feb. 15 Jewish Review. They ask how many more have to be buried. Well I ask them, what homeland will we Israelis have left under the kind of illogical and flawed policies they suggest?

Alexis G. Hutera
Portland
Alexis G. Hutera is  a dual citizen of Israel and America, who has been teaching in Portland.

To the editor:

I am writing in response to the two replies in the Feb. 15 Jewish Review to Robert Horenstein’s Feb. 1 Jewish Review column, one from the co-chairs of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom of Oregon and the other from Jonathan and Ruthie Moss, Israeli students living in Portland.

“Naqba,” cited in the companion Gaza analysis by Leslie Susser, refers not to the Arab defeat in the 1948 war, but to the existence of the Jewish state per se. It echoes the Nazi slogan, “Die Juden sind unser Unglück”, (the Jews are our misfortune). It’s no coincidence that during the Holocaust the Arabs sided with Hitler and sent an Arab SS Division to fight on the Eastern Front.

After the war Nazi butchers found safe havens in the Arab world.

The Hamas charter requires the elimination of the Jewish state. “The Final Solution” is a life option for them.

These are the people who enlist the sympathies of Brit Tzedek and Jonathan and Ruthie Moss. They catalogue the Jewish brutalities without mentioning the terrorist acts of the Arabs (which predate the state of Israel), or the threat posed by the Iranian Holocaust denier Ahmadinejad. They support the two-state solution, which the Arabs have twice rejected.

Their humanistic sentiment asks, “Are not the Palestinian Arabs human beings too?”

The answer is yes, but it is well to remember that the Germans who supported the Hitler regime were also human.

Does anyone doubt what would happen if the Arabs had the upper hand?

Buoyed by Iranian delivery of better weapons, they continue to harass the Jews. They will not stop.

But the Jews will not surrender. It is better that they die fighting than that they return to slavery!

Gunter Hiller
Holocaust survivor
Portland

To the editor:

I have often wondered about the real purpose of Jewish organizations like Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, whose letter in response to Robert Horenstein’s Feb. 1 column appeared in the Feb. 15 Jewish Review.

It is almost as if they look at the peace process as a euphemism and never as to what is realistically possible.

Do they understand that what really is occurring is not geopolitical in nature, but a more surreptitious process whose ultimate goal calls for the destruction of Israel? Do they not understand Islamic law? Do they look at the suffering of the Palestinians and not see what has gotten them into this unfortunate position?

The Gaza Strip was offered as the beginning of a two-state solution. This was not used to its best advantage by the Palestinians since they, in turn, elected Hamas, which—instead of opening the way for further negotiations—used this as an opportunity to build their weapons arsenal, increase rocket attacks into Israel and increase suicide bomber attacks.

Can Brit Tzedek be on Israel’s side only if Israel remains weak, defenseless and turns the other cheek? Is this the kind of group that would have waved white flags as Jews were being marched into Auschwitz?

Let us all be spared from this kind of myopic altruism that betrays Israel time and time again.

Sarina Rosen
Portland

To the editor:

Jonathan and Ruthie Moss’s article in the Feb. 15 Jewish Review challenges the Feb. 1 article by Robert Horenstein in whose estimation President Bush’s latest attempt to broker a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians was doomed to failure.

In their long list of contentions and condemnatory examples against Horenstein and, by extension, against Israel—20 of which argued on behalf of the Palestinians—the Mosses failed to explain what, on each occasion, motivated Israel to take retaliatory measures against her sworn enemies.

And then the Mosses proceed to dehumanize a people and a country that gave them birth by accusing Israel, in their words, “of total disregard of the human rights of such a large population of (Palestinian) civilians.”

“Total disregard?”

I wonder what they were thinking when they made this assertion. A great sage said, “Be liberal with your wealth not with your words,” for you may have to swallow them.

The Mosses’ insidious accusation reveals more about them, the accusers, than about the accused.

It is Israel’s exceptionally high humane standards for safeguarding the lives of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, Beirut and elsewhere that Israel’s enemies fully exploit to their advantage, a fact which results in Israeli civilians and soldiers becoming targets. And the conflict lingers.

The Mosses, at best, have given us only one half of a hundred dollar note, while completely dismissing the other half.

In their long descriptive list of impassioned grievances against Horenstein and Israel, they wrote of “evaluating Israel’s actions.” For the sake of veracity and fairness they should have dedicated equal time to evaluating Israel’s reactions also.

Robert Horenstein remains a voice of reason in Middle East affairs.

Rabbi Shlomo Truzman
Portland

To the editor:

Your page-one article of Feb. 15 claimed that when she addressed the Portland School Board Vanessa Meyerowitz was “spurred to action on behalf of all Jewish students.”

Her testimony, a link to which you published, indicated no such thing. She spoke only on behalf of Orthodox Jewish students, in asking for six days to be protected from exams.

It is important that the School Board understand this.

Among Jews, 40 percent are non-observant, 50 percent are observant to some extent and only 10 percent believe as does Ms. Meyerowitz.

A more reasonable request to the School Board would be to protect only the two most holy days of the Jewish calendar.

I suggest that 90 percent of all Jews would find that to be sufficient.

Lawrence Ruby
Lake Oswego