Letters to the editor October 28
Carter rapped for Siwan visit
(Editor’s note: The following is an open letter to former President Jimmy Carter that has been shared with the media.)
As the chairman of an organization of terror victims, I would like to express my dismay at your choice of itinerary on your trip to Israel. Specifically, your visit to the Jerusalem neighborhood of Kfar Hashiloach, known to Arabs as Silwan, was inappropriate. This visit, at this time, when local Arabs are daily engaging in terrorism against Israelis, lends support to Arab terrorism. Let me explain.
Just three weeks ago, on Sept. 29, as my wife and I were stuck in a traffic jam on the main road connecting the Mount of Olives cemetery to central Jerusalem, we were attacked by a mob of Arabs who threw rocks at us, wrecked our car, and left me bleeding profusely from the head. Had the traffic not cleared up when it did, we might well have been killed. As you can imagine, the experience anyway was more than a little traumatic.
This was no isolated incident. Daily, for the past two months, rock throwers have been scanning local traffic for Jews, then attacking them with rocks. An American citizen who exited his vehicle to defend his wife was stabbed five times. More generally, Arabs in the area have been rioting regularly.
You will realize, of course, the significance of the two-month figure: Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority resumed two months ago. This local [rioting] in general and rock-throwing in particular of Arabs in the neighborhood that you visited is aimed specifically to exert pressure on the government of Israel by maiming and attempting to murder its citizens — i.e. terrorism.
Against this backdrop of terrorism by local Arabs, you, a former president of the United States, paid them a visit. This is morally despicable.
Aside from the ill-advised support for nondemolition of illegal Arab structures, which dangerously seeks to have the law distinguish between people on the basis of race, your show of solidarity specifically in a flash point of Arab violence and terrorism sends a very wrong message. You should not have supported terrorism by making this visit.
Please consider your itinerary carefully next time.
Meir Indor
Jerusalem, Israel
(The author chairs the Almagor Terror Victims Association.)
Enough short-term solutions
People would be well served to remember the mistakes of the past.
U.S. Treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau made the following statement to the House Ways and Means Committee in 1939 — 10 years after the 1929 stock market crash: “We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. After eight years we have just as much unemployment as when we started, and an enormous debt to boot.”
Government stimulus plans are short-term solutions that address the symptom instead of the disease. Joe Sestak supports this failed policy of the past that will eventually bankrupt our country. In addition, Joe Sestak seeks to gain political favor by making the usual attacks on corporations, and now even China. This approach will not solve the problem that we are losing our competitiveness in the global economy. Joe Sestak addresses these issues with a tinkering approach of targeted tax cuts to favored industries that nobody is buying.
I have had enough of half-baked solutions from people who have no experience in meeting a payroll. Pat Toomey has a better understanding of what it takes to create jobs and will work to reverse the Obama policies that will lead our nation to economic ruin.
Frank Dreifuss
Mt. Lebanon
RJC punts facts
The Republican Jewish Coalition seeks to portray Joe Sestak, Democratic Senate candidate from Pennsylvania, as anti-Israel in linking him to a group called J Street. Had they researched the congressional records of Mr. Sestak and his Republican opponent, Pat Toomey, they would have supplanted Mr. Sestak’s name with Mr. Toomey’s. For it is Mr. Sestak who has been pro-Israel and not Mr. Toomey.
During Mr. Toomey’s six-year tenure in Congress, he voted seven times against aid to Israel totaling $15 billion. AIPAC stated these bills were “vital to Israel’s continued survival and strength.”
He voted four times against funding the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In May 2001, Mr. Toomey voted against an amendment to allow for an end to funding for military training for Lebanon unless it deployed its armed forces to the border with Israel and stopped Hezbollah from launching attacks into Israel. Does this sound pro-Israel?
In contrast, Mr. Sestak has been a steadfast supporter of Israel. From his first year in office, 2007, to the present, he has consistently voted for aid to Israel totaling $7.75 billion. Mr. Sestak voted to increase funding by $20.5 million for the U.S.-Israeli cooperative short-range missile defense program known as David’s Sling in the Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act.
These are the facts that The Republican Jewish Coalition either failed to research or simply did not disclose. It’s quite clear to me which candidate is pro-Israel.
Tom Sacks-Wilner
Philadelphia
(The author is originally from Squirrel Hill.)
Think what you care about
The recent firing by NPR of its black liberal commentator, Juan Williams, was driven by CAIR (the Council for American-Islamic Relations). It’s just like when CAIR went after prize-winning journalist Steve Emerson and got him banned from NPR.
There is one candidate running for U.S. Senate who has aided CAIR. Joe Sestak cares so much for them and their political agenda that he was the keynote speaker at their fundraiser dinner in Philadelphia.
Sestak should know that when he spoke for CAIR, it was an unnamed co-conspirator of the Holy Land Foundation, a Texas-based front organization for HAMAS.
Sestak cares about CAIR’s political agenda, which is very anti-Israel and very much in favor of imposing sharia (Muslim law) in the United States. What are sharia’s views of women’s right and gay rights?
Sestak cares about CAIR’s political agenda, when he was one of a minority of US Congressmen who signed a letter condemning Israel for its legitimate blockade of Gaza.
Sestak cares about President Obama’s policy against Israel. A policy where the president has called for the construction of a 15-story mosque [near] Ground Zero at the same time he has demanded that Jews cannot build an apartment in Jerusalem.
Sestak cares about President Obama’s policy against Israel. A policy which Obama wants us not to use words like “terror” to describe events such as 9/11 or Fort Hood killings or the attempt to blow up the Christmas plane to Detroit. Instead, he wants us to call them “man-made disasters.” Or during congressional hearings, his Attorney General Eric Holder refused to name Islamic extremists as being responsible for these “man-made disasters.” Don’t believe me? Hear him testify on YouTube.
Think about who you care for when you vote. Do you care for Israel? Do you care for free speech and tolerance? CAIR doesn’t. Do you care about women’s rights and gay rights? Do you care that CAIR is gaining more and more control of the Democrat Party, the American media and our government policies. If not now, when?
Dr. Seth Corey
Chicago
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