Letters to the Editor
Portlander
Published Letters: 309 Editor's Choice: 13
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Well, Jeffrey
[Read the article: The "hiding among civilians" myth]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm tired of hassling you. You irritate me, but I simply embarrass myself by engaging in urination contests. I will continue to respond to your posts but in a different, more depersonalized way. A few points (for future reference):
1- You have no right to decide what is and what is not anti-semitism. You and I have the same historical heritage. The same evil that eliminated half of my family almost certainly touched yours at some point. You have only the right that I have.
2- I do expect Jews to be different. I expect us NOT to engage in Nazi practices - ever - for any reason. I expect us NOT to create a state where the minority (Palestinians) are treated like fourth-class garbage. I expect us NOT to engage in torture, deliberate humiliation, etc.
3- I find it disturbing that there are almost no Israelis that I admire. I'm a big fan of Uri Avnery, but you would probably call him anti-semitic too even though he is an Israeli Jew. I have more empathy today for the Palestinian olive grower whose crops are stolen by Israeli settlers and whose children are killed by the IDF for protesting the theft than I do for any Israeli.
4- You call yourself a supporter of Israel, but you know nothing of its history, you refuse to acknowledge what it has done, your whole argument is that others are worse, etc.
Darrell
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Pollard
[Read the article: The neocons' next war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Pollard is a traitor and should be executed not pardoned.
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Pollard is a traitor.
[Read the article: The neocons' next war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He gave classified intelligence to a foreign government - a government that shares few values with us. Torture, mass murder and ethnic cleansing are not American values.
I don't support Israeli expansionism and we should not be providing money or arms to Israel. As long as we do, why is it inconsistent for Israel's enemies to provide arms to people opposing it. Until Israel agrees to 100% withdrawal from Syrian and Palestinian land (and airspace, and borders, etc.), I oppose giving anything to Israel. Now, if you support an actual peace - that is something other than everyone must capitulate to Israel - then maybe we can find common ground.
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No Freedom in Cuba Before Castro
[Read the article: To the lifeboats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The article is just pathetic right-wing drivel. I love the bit about 'basic civil liberties'.
There was no freedom in Cuba before Castro. The unholy alliance of Bautista scum, American sugar companies and the Mafia produced a brutal, fascist dictatorship at least the equal of anything Castro has done. Castro is certainly a dictator, and I hold no book for him, but I am tired of hearing about the Cubans who came seeking freedom in 1959.
What came were the torturers and murderers of the Bautista regime, the wealthy scum who controlled the torturers and murderers and the upper middle and middle class professionals who benefited from the dictatorship. These people came here to avoid legitimate prosecution, and we should never allowed even one of this garbage to come to our country.
The Cubans in Cuba will never allow this fascist vermin to come back and reclaim the privileges that they had under the dictatorship.
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Similar, but not the same
[Read the article: E.U.: Prove your product isn't poison]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]cegerner-
Yes, heavy metals are universally toxic to humans and most animals whether ingested, inhaled or absorbed. All heavy metals are not, however, toxic to the same degree. Lead is highly toxic to humans at very low doses - copper is substantially less toxic at the same dose. Also, based on my reading, copper appears to be signifcantly less likely to leach out of the products containing it in solder. So, is copper solder a truly "green" solution? No. But, it is still considerably less toxic than lead and ,therefore, a real improvement.
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Let's talk about Israeli democracy
[Read the article: How Lebanon rescued me]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, Israel is a democracy in that its leaders are elected. The elctoral process is free and fair. The elctoral system is not.
1- Israeli democracy is designed as a 'tyranny of the majority' democracy. Jews have complete freedom of speech, but Arabs do not. Israeli courts routinely prohibit various Arabs from running for the Knesset based on their political views. Arabs are 20% of the population, but the way voting is done, Arabs are always underrepresented - by design.
2- There is no constitution. There are no guaranteed rights. So, the entire structure of Israeli government exists only to serve its Jewish citizens. The discrimination against Arab citizens is flagrant and grotesque - in education funding, in health care, in land use, in welfare, in water allocation, in electricity allocation, etc. For Arabs, Israel is no democracy - it is more like organized crime.
3- Israel has spent its entire existence doing whatever it can to keep Israel as Arabenrein as possible. It started with the year long Irgun campaign of terrorism against Arab civilians in 1947 - including the Dei Yassin massacre and a host of more minor atrocities. After partition, more Palestinians stayed than Israel wanted so it expelled tens of thousands at gunpoint and dynamited more than 350 villages. Since 1967, it has engaged in flagrant ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem to ensure the right demographics.
4- Israel will only be a democracy as long as there is a Jewish majority. On the day that Arabs become a majority (about 75 years from now), Israel will cease being a democracy or it will expel as many of its Arab citizens as necessary to maintain the artificial majority.
Yes, Israel is a democracy, but it is not a country that would qualify as free or fair.