By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: REUTERS)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be upset with his 26-year-old son Yair (“PM’s son caught on tape in Friday night jaunt to strip club,” January 9). Arrogance obviously runs in the family.Whenever the truth manages to get out about the misdeeds of the Netanyahus, particularly the needs of the prime minister and his wife for expensive gifts such as cigars and champagne, it is called a plot to bring him down. The tape apparently was of a conversation in a car – driven at taxpayer expense – taking Yair and two friends to various nightclubs on a Friday night.Yair told his friend, the son of businessman Kobi Maimon: “My dad arranged for your dad $20 billion and you’re fighting with me about NIS 400.”He also said that his father “arranged for your father a great deal” and fought for it in the Knesset.Maimon is heard on the tape saying that if the conversation got out, it would be “hell.”A statement put out on behalf of the Netanyahus saying that this happened over two years ago and that Yair and his friends had been drinking is not an excuse. It is also widely believed that one actually speaks the truth while under the influence.YENTEL JACOBSNetanyaBritain’s Prince Harry certainly sowed his wild oats in his twenties, but now, 10 or so years on, he is very popular in the UK following his engagement and forthcoming marriage. Very likely, the same will happen with Yair Netanyahu when he (hopefully) meets the right person and decides to settle down.In the meantime, no doubt he has become the easy prey of the Israeli media and people who forget that lads will be lads, whoever their parents are. There is nothing remotely newsworthy about Yair’s antics or language.PETER SCHWEITZERTel AvivGossip and fake news...How sad it is to see pure gossip (“PM’s son caught on tape in Friday night jaunt to strip club”) and fake news (“Kushner firms, Israeli insurer deny conflict of interest”) on the front page of the January 9 The Jerusalem Post. There must have been something more newsworthy and substantial for this important location.The placement of an article in a newspaper, as well as its content, can reflect bias. When I subscribed to the Post, I never expected to see a front page that would be more appropriate for The New York Times.RON SPIROJerusalem...and a rating system The Jerusalem Post should establish an index for its columnists and op-ed writers – a scale icon that could appear at the beginning of each submission with, for instance, a numerical range of 1 through 6, with 1 being farthest right and 6 farthest left. This would not act as a restraint on content, but simply identify the writer so that readers could at least be on guard for the discrepancy in “facts” presented by contributors.The overwhelming plethora of far-left writers presented in your opinion pages these days – Jeff Barak, Gershon Baskin, Douglas Bloomfield, etc. – inevitably skews the paper’s message.The Post has every right to publish whomever it wishes, even writers who champion modern-day Nazis from Germany or those who wish to aid Palestinian terrorists. But wouldn’t it be at least constructive for your readership to get some a priori assistance in identifying the source of its information?CHAIM ABRAMOWITZJerusalemTamimi as actressWith regard to “Military court still mulls jailing of Tamimi teen until the end of her trial” (January 9), this is “Pallywood.” The star is 16 years old.European, Israeli and Arab film crews funded by anti-Israel NGOs set up false scenarios, hoping to provoke incidents they can manipulate to produce propaganda videos to shame Israel. The Internet then zips these lies around the world.Palestinian parents goad their children into throwing stones at Israeli civilians and soldiers.They encourage them to harass soldiers in the hope of getting a response. The civilized world would consider this to be child abuse. To terrorists and antisemites, these manipulated children are heroes.LEN BENNETTOttawaEx-envoy distorts the facts To make a political case, Ilan Baruch (“Sigmar Gabriel is right,” Comment & Features, January 9) seriously distorts facts. He maintains that the Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria live in conditions “reminiscent of apartheid.”Apartheid is a libelous buzzword used by those seeking to de-legitimize Israel. In South Africa, it was a system of severe racial segregation that mandated total separation of the races, with blacks treated repressively. Israel is dealing with a political situation of an entirely different order.Israeli Arabs move freely within society, are treated in the same hospitals, eat in the same restaurants, etc.Baruch writes: “Israelis participate in parliamentary elections. For 50 years and counting, those Palestinians [in Judea and Samaria] have been denied the right to vote.” Is he truly unaware that the Palestinian Authority, which has considerable autonomy, has held parliamentary elections? Baruch fails to mention opportunities the Palestinian Arabs have had to establish their own state: Yasser Arafat and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, respectively, rejected very credible offers made by then-prime minister Ehud Barak in 2000 and then-prime minister Ehud Olmert in 2008. He would hold Israel responsible for the situation of the Palestinian Arabs rather than holding them accountable.Arafat and Abbas rejected the offers because they called for a declared end to the conflict, and they would not sign off on this. That is the heart of the matter.An honest inquiry exposes the fact that the Palestinian Arabs do not want a two-state solution – they want it all.What Baruch also chooses not to mention are the thousands of innocent Israelis who have been slaughtered by Palestinian Arab terrorists and how security issues affect Israeli policy. The cold hard fact – well documented – is that during times when the Palestinian Arabs have been granted the most freedom of movement and the greatest cause for political hope, their terrorism has increased.The Palestinian Arabs would like a state granted to them by the international community without the need for bothersome negotiations, which require concessions. It is people such as Ilan Baruch who promote this.ARLENE KUSHNERJerusalemThe writer is an author, journalist, blogger and co-chair of the Legal Grounds Campaign, a group promoting Israel’s rights in Judea and Samaria.I was shocked to see you publish Ilan Baruch, a former Israeli ambassador to South Africa, branding the country he represented as an apartheid state. Within a week of the Knesset barring foreign excoriators, it is sad to see that we have so much to clean up right here “within the family.”The ex-ambassador has proudly blogged that he “breathed a sigh of relief” upon leaving the Foreign Ministry. One hopes he has similarly disavowed his Foreign Ministry pension.How can we complain about EU countries funding BDS when people like this are defaming Israel on the Israeli taxpayer’s dime?ZALMI UNSDORFERLondon
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