Court Didn’t Mandate Hebron House Eviction
In your December 19 editorial “Hebron and the Rule of Law,” regarding the evictions of Jews from Hebron’s Beit HaShalom, you write: “In November the court authorized the army to evict the squatters. The troops went in to enforce the law.” That is misleading.
The Supreme Court did not order the eviction of the inhabitants of Beit HaShalom, a house whose purchase by an American Jew is currently being disputed in court. As such, the eviction did not take place pursuant to an effort to enforce such a ruling. Rather, as former Israeli Supreme Court justice Yaakov Turkel has said: “The ruling does not obligate the state to act to evacuate the Jews, but rather gives them the freedom to decide whether to do so or not.”
Indeed, 49 Knesset members signed onto a letter sent to Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter explaining that the court ruling “did not obligate the government to evict” the house’s residents. Signatories included minister Rafi Eitan; Kadima’s Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Knesset’s defense and security committee, and six chairmen of political parties.
Morton A. Klein
National President
Zionist Organization of America
New York, N.Y.
It’s the Right Ignoring Facts on the Ground
Focusing on inside-the-Beltway politics and replaying the blame game for past failures is obviously far easier than facing up to the hard realities and sacrifices necessary to preserve hope for the long-term survival and security of a democratic, Jewish homeland. Jonathan Tobin’s claim that pro-peace voices avoid realities in the West Bank is a bit ironic given the right’s failure to acknowledge the threat to Israel’s long-term security and peace posed by a settler movement growing increasingly out of control (“Spoiling for a Fight in Washington,” December 12).
This is most visibly demonstrated by the settlers’ recent confrontation in Hebron with the Israeli government, and their abhorrent attacks on Palestinian civilians that led Israel’s leading newspaper, Haaretz, to label them “Jewish terrorists.” Right-wing American Jews who think that the pro-Israel, pro-peace camp’s motivation to highlight these realities is to wrest organizational and institutional power from established groups are making a critical mistake.
The argument we’re having is not over organizational politics. It’s about what is best for the United States, for Israel and for American Jews at a critical moment in history. It is about standing up for what it means to be Jewish — and defining how Jewish people exercise power, how we behave and how we treat others. It is about the very survival of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state if there is not an immediate, peaceful and diplomatic end to the conflict, and a legitimate and internationally accepted Palestinian state established as its neighbor.
If we truly care about our people and our nation, if we truly seek to be pro-Israel, then it is our duty not simply to support the new Obama administration in a renewed push for peace but to press it to make good on its promise to make peacemaking a priority.
Jeremy Ben-Ami
Executive Director
J Street
Washington, D.C.
Keep Your Healthy Hands Off My Hanukkah Food
I love my latkes and my soufganiot just the way my grandmother made them, the way my mother of blessed memory made them, and the way my ex-wives and current girlfriend believe in the traditional Hanukkah fare. Who cares about oil and fat and spiking blood sugar levels for one week of the year?
I read your article on modernizing the latke and it made my blood pressure spike (“Fear of Frying — A Healthy Holiday,” December 12). Hey cookbook ladies: Leave my latkes and soufganiot alone! I can’t wait to see what you come up with for Pesach, no-flour matzos maybe?
Alexander Diamond
Wiscasset, Maine
Cartoon Rings True For Christian Pastor
The cartoon in the Forward by Eli Valley depicting the efforts of evangelical Christians to convert Jews is a dramatic and energetic illustration of what must be a deeply felt resentment of the 2,000-year history of the Christian attempt to repudiate Judaism and convert Jews (“Evangelical Tours of Israel!” November 14).
I was deeply moved by the cartoon and the reality it conveys. As a Christian pastor, I abhor any attempts to violate the integrity of anyone’s spiritual path. But especially in light of the way Christians have treated Jews, I am sad beyond words. In order for healing to begin, wounds need to be named.
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein’s letter criticizing the cartoon is puzzling (“Unfair Depiction of Evangelical Zionists,” November 28). While I agree that it is wrong to extend blame to an entire group because of the actions of some, my experience of most Christians is different from his. There has been a deep sense in the Christian community (not just among evangelicals) that all the world should be Christian.
I respect Rabbi Eckstein’s experience, but the Christian church has perpetuated a call for conversion for most of its history, and it is only recently that people have begun to see a deeper and yet more complicated message in the Gospels — one of love, forgiveness and thanksgiving, and deep appreciation for the ways difference can be a source of vitality, strength, imagination and energy. Christians need to understand what it feels like to be Jewish, or any faith other than Christian, in order for loving community to be born and take root.
Donald M. Mackenzie
Retired Pastor
University Congregational United Church of Christ
Seattle, Wash.
Regarding the article "Kosher Industry’s Woes Reach a Poor Village in Guatemala" the author seems to be extolling the industry as though it was nothing but a gracious giver of tzedakah to these poor people. But in truth the industry was exploiting these people's desperate conditions by illegally employing them in what the author describes as dangerous conditions and extra long hours. The industry paid them to work illegally and ultimately suffer the indignity of arrest and deportation. If the industry was such a great benefactor, it could have brought workers in legally, created safe work conditions, and paid them a living wage within the eight hour work day. The industry's actions are a shanda.
Jeremy Ben-Ami writes: "It is about the very survival of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state if there is not an immediate, peaceful and diplomatic end to the conflict, and a legitimate and internationally accepted Palestinian state established as its neighbor." This approach displays abysmal ignorance of the ideology of Islam and the role that Islam plays in the conflict. The conflict is not a conflict of where to draw lines on a map. The Islamic religious authorities opposed any Jewish sovereignty in the land of British mandate Palestine even long before the State of Israel was proclaimed. On the day that Israel was proclaimed a state, five Arab armies invaded for the stated purpose of destroying Israel utterly and driving the Jews into the sea. None of the Arab countries wanted a Palestinian state because there was no such thing as a Palestinian people. There were only Arabs. Palestinian (Arab) peoplehood was an artificial invention under Soviet tutelage after 1967 in order to reframe the conflict in terms that the West could more easily be fooled into understanding. In its essence, the conflict is a Muslim war against any Jewish sovereignty in that region which religious Muslims consider to be "Muslim" land. Both Hamas and Fatah (PLO) call for the destruction of Israel; both refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state in any borders. Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, wants to establish an Islamic-Sharia state. Fatah (Abbas & Co)are more nationalistic than religious, but they complete the Islamic religious cult of "martyrdom" preached in all their mosques. Then there is Hezbollah which has the same program for Israel's destruction that Hamas does. Finally, there is the Islamic Republic of Iran which is officially pledged to destroy Israel -- and they are not even Arab! All of them are implacable in their determination to destroy Israel. That being the case, the notion of an "immediate, peaceful and diplomatic end to the conflict" is absurd, at best, and fatally misguided, at worst. You cannot negotiate with people who are dedicated to murdering you. We must understand that the essence of the conflict is religious, not territorial. It is not an "Arab-Israeli" conflict; even less is it a "Palestinian-Israeli" conflict. It is an Islamic war against Israel which has been going on for a hundred years, in one form or other, ever since Jews began to resettle in the Palestine territories. There is no "immediate, peaceful and diplomatic end to the conflict", andd there cannot be. Get used to it, and draw the proper conclusions.
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