Posted by middleeast on 18th February 2010
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Thursday, February 18, 2010 4 Adar, 5770 27:47
Sir, – Like Judy Telman, I was just about “finished off” by Caroline Glick’s column praising Sarah Palin, but then felt good about the redemptive ending of her letter, that there are “people who volunteer to help others… people who don’t care how or if you practice your religion, or where you come from or what language you speak” (“Daily news,” Letters, February 15). But after reading the next letter, I was back to nearly being finished off (“Language barriers,” Letters, February 15).
The writer asks about the article “J’lem rape crisis center fails to help Arabic-speakers” (February 10), “Why is the onus upon the English-speaking professionals to help Arab youths in crisis who do not speak Hebrew?” In other words, rape victims should not be helped if they speak Arabic?
No wonder the initial letter-writer wondered if she had “moved to the pre-Civil War United States.” And that she was struck by the irony that in the same issue, a piece could “wonder how to improve Israel’s image abroad.”
JAMES ADLER
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Posted by middleeast on 18th February 2010
February 12, 2010
Living in the past
Critics of J Street seem to be living in the past. Israel’s army, rightly our pride and always indispensable, will become still less effective in today’s world of guerrillas, missiles and nuclear arms. It was not decisive in Lebanon and Gaza.
Especially for tiny countries like Israel, security is less about borders and more about accepting neighborhoods. This is why in The Saturday Review in 1971, David Ben-Gurion said: “As for security, militarily defensible borders, while desirable, cannot by themselves guarantee our future. Real peace with our Arab neighbors – mutual trust and friendship – that is the only true security.”
Israel has had decades of peace with Egypt and Jordan. And there is even general agreement on what an Israeli-Palestinian settlement will look like.
Those opposed to J Street and to the peace process, even in principle, need to propose a credible alternative for Israel’s long-term survival.
JAMES ADLER
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Posted by middleeast on 11th February 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 19 Shevat, 5770 24:28 IST
Avoiding an ‘apartheid state’
Sir, – Thanks for your prominent reporting of the fact that “in addressing the ramifications of a continued stalemate in negotiations, [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak said, “It must be understood that if between the Jordan [River] and the [Mediterranean Sea] there is only one political entity called ‘Israel’, it will by necessity either be not Jewish or not democratic, and we will turn into an apartheid state” (“Defense Minister preaches two states for two peoples on eve of Mubarak meeting,” January 27).
But this should not be news to anyone. It is impossible to see why the Right does not understand, when every single elected government, from that of Yitzhak Rabin onward, has recognized it.
I worry that Israel has become so deeply polarized among haredim, Israeli Arabs, the settlement movement and Tel Aviv liberals, that it is too paralyzed to create and seize serious opportunities and take serious actions, even if the time were ever ripe. David Horovitz has himself expressed similar concerns in his columns.
I wish more people could be conservative on terrorism, but equally liberal on two viable states and territorial final status terms, which would grant reasonable Palestinian aspirations and, above all, settle an increasingly dangerous conflict and avoid Barak’s demographic “apartheid state” in order to save Israel.
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