Obama also encouraged intolerance
Ada Horwich is justified in her complaint about the “cruelty, insularity and bullying” that are the characteristics of the Trump administration (“In the Trumpification of the GOP, rising threats confront Jewish Americas,” June 26). She is also correct that the intolerance encouraged by the president threatens American Jews.
She would have more credibility, however, if she and other Jewish Democrats would criticize how President Barack Obama and his supporters smeared opponents of the Iran nuclear deal as warmongers and dupes of a foreign power. It would ground her plea for a more tolerant America in principle rather than partisanship.
ANDREW APOSTOLOU
Washington, D.C.
ZOA donation was legitimate
A recent article about Zionist Organization of America President Mort Klein is filled with inaccurate allegations (“Qatar spat is ZOA’s Klein’s latest battle,” June 26). Here are the facts.
On Nov. 2, ZOA innocently and legitimately accepted a Jewish businessman’s generous donation for tables at the ZOA gala. The donor gave every indication that he was donating his own funds: The checks listed his private home address, and he told Klein he was donating because he “loved ZOA’s pro-Israel work,” wanted to become “active, one of our top five donors, join ZOA’s board,” and urge his “wealthy Jewish friends to donate.”
When a filing last week indicated his funds had possible links to Qatar, ZOA promptly returned the donation to eliminate any hint of impropriety. There were no conditions, either expressed or implied, attached to the donation. Ever.
This donor advised that Qatar was moving to change its policies to become more pro-Israel and pro-American, and Klein’s meeting with them could boost such progress, benefitting Israel and America. Klein refused to visit Qatar, despite the donor’s requests, before and after receipt of the checks.
After major Zionists Malcolm Hoenlein, Alan Dershowitz, Mike Huckabee and others agreed to visit Qatar, and after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin praised Qatar for “improvements made in fighting terror,” and after turning down an invitation for four months, Klein decided to visit in January 2018. He went armed with ZOA’s 50-page report detailing Qatar’s troubling policies and ZOA’s demands to benefit Israel and the Jewish people. Significantly, Klein was instrumental in obtaining cancellation of Al Jazeera’s anti-Israel documentary scheduled to run last February, and removal of anti-Semitic books from Qatar’s book fair.
Notwithstanding this, Klein continued to criticize Qatar. In a Feb. 2 interview, Klein stated, “I was and will be tough on Qatar and until they change … I won’t be supportive of Qatar,” and “my feelings will remain negative until they have taken substantial steps for an extended period of time.” He also condemned the emir’s U.N. speech blaming Israel for lack of peace and Qatar’s Jerusalem positions.
MARK LEVENSON
Chair, Zionist Organization of America
JOHN ROSEN
Executive Vice President, Zionist Organization of America
The ‘sodomites’ are actually defending us
The Jill Jacobs op-ed is surprising not only because of its factual inaccuracies, but also the quite derogatory manner in which the author characterizes men and women, many of whom are Jewish, as “sodomites who are running our country” (“Immigration policies are straight out of the Bible,” June 26). Indeed, many of these “sodomites” have for many years put their life and limb on the line 24 hours a day, seven days a week to protect our borders from whatever dangers may arise.
“Zero tolerance” does not “cast all border crossers as criminals,” as implied by the author (or by a good portion of the media). Rather, if a border crosser presents himself to an officer at a port of entry with a visa or claiming asylum, he is processed and considered a legal entrant. Illegality arises when entering the United States without passing thru a port of entry. They are not immigrants, they are aliens in the country without government approval.
The dastardly “change in policy” everyone is talking about is that rather than dump those entering the country illegally back across the border, the law is actually being enforced and the arrested are being sent to detention.
IRA REESE
Olney
