AOC: ‘Antisemite on call’
Regarding “AOC introduces amendment to halt US arms sale to Israel” (September 19), it is ironic that on the very day that the US was apologizing for the August 29 US drone strike in Kabul that killed as many as 10 innocent people, knee-jerk anti-Israel US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced an amendment to the defense budget bill to suspend a missile sale to Israel that would help convert unguided bombs into more accurate precision-guided munitions.
Israel is acknowledged worldwide to be the nation that takes the most care to avoid “collateral damage” to innocent civilians in its strikes against terrorists, while Hamas frankly admits 1) placing civilians in danger by using them as human shields and 2) targeting thousands of missiles at non-combatant residents in Jewish communities throughout Israel, but guess which is the only party that AOC is seeking to condemn and harm.
That’s but one of the many reasons that some commentators suggest that the initials “AOC” stand for “Antisemite on Call.”
AYN BRENER, Jerusalem
Can we talk?
Regarding “US: We haven’t explicitly called for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks” (September 17), there is no point in calling for renewed talks between Israel and Palestinian Arabs at this time. There can be no meaningful talks until there is a change in the Arab leadership.
The PA’s charter calls for killing all Israelis and the Hamas charter calls for killing Jews everywhere. Where is there room for compromise? The Oslo Accords, 1993, stipulated the PLO would rescind this heinous clause, but they never called for the conference that could do it. It apparently is still their goal. As for Hamas, the 4,300 rockets fired at Israel in May alone speaks for itself.
At the recent talks between the PA, Egypt and Jordan, Abbas made it clear he wants to roll the clock back more than 70 years and make the temporary 1949 armistice lines a permanent border. That old horse fled the stable in 2000, when Arafat unleashed the Second intifada, after rejecting exactly what Abbas now alleges he wants.
The next round of talks should be based on the American “Peace to Prosperity” plan, which was also rejected by the PA.
It is up to the Arabs in the disputed areas to find new leadership. Israel cannot do it for them, nor can Israel do anything to satisfy their leaders’ unbridled lust for power.
LEN BENNETT, Ottawa, Canada
Anti-Israel surfing safari
Letter writer Yigal Horowitz (“Antisemitism variant,” September 15) correctly identifies the dangerous strain of antisemitism infecting social media. Last October US special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism Elan Carr organized the first-ever US government-sponsored conference on Internet antisemitism.
The groundbreaking event, entitled “Ancient Hatred, Modern Medium,” was hosted by then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo, and brought together over 30 international leaders of government, religious and civil society, social media platforms and academia. Israeli participants included former prime minister Netanyahu, minister of strategic affairs Orit Farkash-Hacohen, MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer and MFA representative Ambassador Akiva Tor.
The goal of the conference was to devise effective counter-strategies to combat antisemitism online while upholding America’s longstanding commitment to free speech. The conference received rave reviews, with several observers declaring that it was among the best discussions of how to fight antisemitism they had ever seen. Unfortunately, The Jerusalem Post provided scant coverage of this event.
All those interested in joining the fight against this burgeoning threat to the Jewish community worldwide are urged to view recordings of the conference sessions on the Department of State’s website at: www.state.gov/anti-semitism-conference-2020 .
EFRAIM A. COHEN, Zichron Yaakov
Making a name for yourself
Regarding “Last names changed at Ellis Island but Jews gained a safe haven” (September 19), my mother was born Chia Gittel Pinyan in Latvia, but discovered on her first day in New York that she was now Ida Gertrude Pinyan. She assumed the change had been made at Ellis Island, but, in researching my parents’ stories, I discovered my mother was listed as Ida Gertrude Pinyan with her parents Isaac and Malka Pinyan on the ship’s manifest of the RMS Baltic when they left Liverpool for New York.
Ironically, my official name in Israel was changed by an officious Interior Ministry clerk when I made aliyah. The clerk claimed Isabel was the same name as the biblical Jezebel or the Spanish queen who banished the Jews from Spain during the Inquisition. He said neither woman was a suitable image for a young woman in Jerusalem and asked if I had another name. When I responded that my middle name was Natalie, he entered “Natalie” on my official ID, thus creating various problems for me in later years.
The image of Ellis Island clerks carelessly changing immigrants’ names was reinforced in a famous joke told in a Catskill Mountains resort similar to the one in the film Dirty Dancing: “A Jewish immigrant who came from Russia arrived at Ellis Island in New York. He was overwhelmed by the commotion and confusing procedures. When one of the officials asked him a second time “What is your name?” he replied, “Shoyn fergessen?” (in Yiddish, “You’ve already forgotten?”) The official then recorded the man’s name as Sean Ferguson.
Some entertainers changed their names because they believed less ethnic names would appeal to wider audiences, often on the advice – or orders – of their Hollywood bosses. Would movie audiences have loved Archibald Leach as much as they loved Cary Grant, Bernard Schwartz instead of Tony Curtis, Issur Danielovitch (later Kirk Douglas) and Frances Ethel Gumm (Judy Garland)? With the exception of Grant, who was born in England, all the others were born in America and never passed through Ellis Island.
In an odd turnaround, many current performers have chosen to keep names that are difficult to pronounce, e.g. Saorise Ronan, Shia LaBeouff, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong’o, Awkwafina (although her real name is actually Nora Lum).
And then there’s Arnold Dorsey, who for some reason chose to perform under the mouthful of a name “Englebert Humperdinck...”
DR. ISABEL (NATALIE) BERMAN, Ra’anana
No peace for the weary
In “Bennett, it is time to freeze West Bank settlements” (September 17), Dan Perry espouses certain basic errors in this piece. While Prime Minister Naftali Bennett may have “right wing” ideology, the coalition which he heads can in no way be classified as “right wing.”
However, the most glaring error is stating that the government cannot pursue peace with the Arab Palestinians because of Bennett. Arab Palestinians were unable to attain peace when “left wing” governments of Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak or even Ehud Olmert were in office. They were unable to attain peace when Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin relinquished land which was paid for with Jewish Palestinian blood.
Arab Palestinians will be unable to attain peace with any Israeli because it is not peace that they want.
SAM ROSENBLUM, Jerusalem
Lucky strike
Regarding “Palestinian prisoners suspend hunger strike” September 17), how can we treat terrorists who have committed the most heinous crimes against our people with such solicitation? Why are we so afraid of them?
The prisoners announced that they suspended the threatened hunger strike because “their demands were met by the Israeli authorities.” They know they always issue threats to bring the IPS and government to heel. How humiliating and shameful. We are desperate for approval and they naturally take advantage of our pathetic weakness. The Arabs in our prisons need only say “hunger strike” and those words strike terror in the heart of the guards and the government; it has always been the same. The government may change but the policy of concessions and surrender ominously remains.
We must be the most unsovereign of sovereign states around.
YENTEL JACOBS, Netanya
Regarding “To our Arab-Israeli brothers and sisters ‘Shukran’” (September 15), while it is possible to appreciate the tolerant and generous spirit of Gil Troy’s communication to Arab-Israeli citizens who shunned the escaped Arab convicts and aided in their re-apprehension, it is nonetheless necessary to consider a more complete picture of the reality. This includes the lawlessness and rebelliousness of a considerable part of Arab citizens of Israel as exemplified in the riots in mixed cities earlier this year and by the daily intimidation of Jewish Israelis, especially in the agricultural sector.
While the violence of this Arab minority takes the greatest toll in lives on Arab citizens, the vast amounts of illegal weaponry present a true security threat to the future of Israel.
Along with this it is important to point out that the ideology of many Arab-Israelis, including those who are part of the present government, looks to a future in which there will no longer be a Jewish state. Therefore, while the praise and thankful words to a very great share of this Israeli minority are truly in place, the other side of this group’s action should also be understood, and contended with now before it is too late.
SHALOM FREEDMAN, Jerusalem
While I am glad the six convicts escaped, I am even happier that they were quickly re-captured – but at least their breakout, brief though it was, brings the prison service into the national attention.
I don’t doubt that the errors in security will be quickly corrected, but there is a more important institutional problem in all our prisons and detention facilities. Out of sight, we are able to ignore the injustices done to this population that we all are aware of, but don’t care enough to correct. The most disturbing example of this is when we let – unchallenged – our former Interior Minister deny prisoners access to vaccinations while the country was in the midst of the corona epidemic.
Poorly ventilated and overcrowded cells, inadequate and sub-standard toilet facilities, overcrowding, and not even a blanket for every prisoner. This was not the intent of the justice system when then these people were sentenced.
I call out for decency in how we treat our prison population not because I think it would lead to better social rehabilitation, but rather because such reform is compatible with how we view ourselves as a decent and just society.
STUART A. BECKER, MD, Rehovot
The $6.5 billion question
Noa Amouyal undershoots the mark in using the phrase “this small, yet growing faction on the Left” when describing left-wing antisemitism in America (“Radical left-wing US politicians drive Jews apart – here’s how to fix it,” September 15). In fact it is this left-wing antisemitism that has taken over American higher education during the past 30 years. As a result, politicians “educated” in left-wing antisemitic anti-Israel drivel have emerged – filled with Jew hatred like that of their German counterparts of the late 1930s.
Prof. Cary Nelson, Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an Affiliated Professor at the University of Haifa, in his widely acclaimed treatise “Israel Denial: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and the Faculty Campaign against the Jewish State”(2019) details the poisonous antisemitic pedagogy that has engulfed American education.
Nelson explains: “Faculty members in BDS-dominated academic disciplines in the humanities and soft sciences feel increasingly justified in teaching courses designed explicitly to delegitimize Israel. I have concluded that the more ambitious anti-Zionist projects are also antisemitic... it should be clear that BDS faculty also do not offer suggestions for policy reform: because they believe the Jewish state is fundamentally demonic and evil. Many faculty who write extensively in opposition to Israel are consumed with hatred... Israel, they believe, cannot be reformed; it must be eliminated... This is an antisemitic goal,”
The source of this antisemitic educational poison is clear.
“Between 1986 and 2018, Middle East Muslim countries donated a total of $6,566,462,768 to US universities... These funds have a significant impact on attitudes, antisemitic culture, and BDS activities” (“Follow The Money -- Examining Undocumented Foreign Funding of American Universities: Implications For Education and Rising Antisemitism,” June 13, 1920, The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.)
Until Jay Ruderman, Rabbi Dr. David Barak-Gorobetsky and their allies find a way to turn off this antisemitic Islamic faucet that has already poured over six and a half billion dollars into American higher education, nothing will change. In fact it is getting worse. This same antisemitic pedagogy is now flooding American secondary and primary education under the euphemisms “ethnic studies” and “critical race theory.”
RICHARD SHERMAN, Margate, Florida
To a cleaner environment
Rachel Bernstein’s article, “How our home is slowly becoming uninhabitable” (September 17), should be a wake-up call for every Israeli on the urgency of Israel “[making] up for lost time… in the wake of climate change.” It is the latest of many similar articles in the Post with a similar theme.
These articles are very welcome and highly commendable, but they leave out “the elephant (and, more literally, the cow) in the room” – that the only way that a climate catastrophe can be prevented is through a societal shift to plant-based diets.
• There would be a sharp decrease in the emission from cows and other farmed animals of methane, which is up to 120 times as potent as CO2 per unit weight,;
• The over a third of the ice-free land area of the world that is currently used for grazing and raising feed crops for animals could be reforested, sequestering much of the CO2 in the atmosphere;
• There would be an end to the setting of fires in the Amazon to clear land for animal agriculture;
• Oceans would be revitalized, adding to their capacity to absorb CO2.
Fortunately, it is much easier to be a vegetarian or vegan today due to the many plant-based substitutes for meat and other animal products, some with an appearance, texture and taste so similar to the animal products that long-time meat eaters can’t tell the difference.
Dietary changes can help leave a decent, habitable world for future generations, while also improving our health, reducing the current massive mistreatment of animals, and being more consistent with basic Jewish teachings on compassion, health and environmental sustainability.
RICHARD H. SCHWARTZ, PH.D., Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Island