Two-state solution would aid enemies of Israel
The only time Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) references that he is Jewish and that he visited Israel over 50 years ago (but not since) is when he scolds Israel? Criticizing Israel doesn’t make one anti-Semitic, but it does when you only criticize Israel and not its enemies (“Sanders brings down the house at J Street,” March 2).
Sanders criticizes the so-called occupation, but never mentions the circumstances of how it came about or the risks if it were to end. He refers to the “injustice” of Israel’s creation and 700,000 Palestinian refugees, but not the Jews killed in that war by invading Arabs, the 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands nor all the injustices done to Jews over the last 1,000 years by Muslims.
Sanders would object were Muslim rights to the Temple Mount be denied, but is silent when Muslims deny Jewish rights. Sanders condemns the treatment of Palestinians, but is deaf and blind to Palestinian terrorism.
Since he offers no qualifications in calling for an end to the so-called occupation, is Sanders fine if it gave Hamas another launching pad for its rockets?
Has there ever been a war where the initiator and loser demands reparations and that the victor give up the land won in a defensive war? Going back to the 1967 cease-fire lines would only encourage more war. If America’s enemies were guaranteed to not lose land or significant number of people, America would be forever fighting, winning and apologizing for winning. That is Sanders’ position. Attack Israel, kill Israelis, Palestinians are made whole and Israelis apologize for winning.
The two-state solution is a prescription for weakening Israel, strengthening Israel’s enemies and laying the foundation for more war and more death.
MELVIN FARBER
Silver Spring
Speak out for LGBT community
I was quite taken aback with the letter to the editor complaining about too much coverage of LGBT issues in Washington Jewish Week (“There’s always space for LGBT coverage,” Letters, March 9). Proportionality has nothing to do with whether one should cover or not cover LGBT issues. As the Jewish people, we have been persecuted time and time again, and members of the LGBT community are persecuted in many places throughout the world and still within our country. We must join hand in hand to speak out. Some members of the LGBT community still are afraid to expose themselves to family and friends so the proportion argument is dead from the start (and the data quote in the letter). All of us (and I as a mother and grandmother) have family and friends in the LGBT community we love and cherish, and for them I speak out.
SHERRY DOGGETT
Silver Spring
Don’t blame anti-Semitic acts on Trump administration
A letter in the March 9 WJW assumes that the current wave of bomb threats and vandalism against Jewish institutions is due to President Donald Trump (Letters, “The administration doesn’t embrace tikkun olam concept”).
Such an assumption flies in the face of the fact that only one person has been arrested, as of the writing of this letter, in connection with these acts and that person accounts for a small fraction of the incidents. That one person arrested, Juan Thompson, is a former reporter for the online publication The Intercept (he was fired for making stuff up) and his Twitter account indicates that while he dislikes Trump, he really hates white liberals and Israel.
Presumably, this person is not fully representative of the person(s) responsible for the wave of bomb threats, but as of now there is essentially no data to make a judgement.
MARTIN WEISS
Potomac
