Letters to the Editor
Xanthro
Published Letters: 522 Editor's Choice: 47
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Again off the mark
[Read the article: 'Tooning out humanity]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"I think that for most Americans, what is happening right now in Europe would bring to mind the South during the fifties. It is confusing that religion has replaced race as the core issue, but as the Hareetz writer points out, it's not like we haven't seen this before."
Because Christian only bathrooms and water fountains have become so common in Europe right now.
There's a huge different between lynching someone because that person is black and having Europe concerned that people are blowing up their trains.
"As a *compliment* to a well known Jewish journalist, whose family has lived here for 200+ years, a commentator noted that he spoke perfect Danish. What else does this guy imagine the journalist would speak??"
That kind of thinking shows little actual effort. Once while in Germany a friend and I were exchanging idiomatic expressions. He'd teach me something in German, I'd tell him the expression in English. An American teacher heard us and complimented me on my English. You know why? Because to her I looked German and most people who look German in German don't get American idiomatic expressions correct.
If everyone in Denmark who had darker skin spoke perfect Danish then the person wouldn't have been complimented on it. That just shows that most people in Denmark with darker skin do not speak perfect Danish, and that's a problem. People need to speak the language of the Country they are in.
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Poor Scholarship
[Read the article: Breaking the silence]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Like much of what passes as scholarship now, the original article is seriously flawed because it uses facts like a drunkard uses a lamppost, for support and not for illumination.
Should Israel be criticized, of course it should. Every country deserves criticized at some level. What differentiates most criticism of Israel is that it is wholly unlike the criticism against other countries. Does Israel discriminate against non-Jews? Absolutely it does. Is Israel unique in discrimination? That’s laughable. There is discrimination in every country, to the point of genocide in Africa. Yet, more UN resolutions are passed condemning Israel in a given year than are passed against all other countries for discrimination in a 25 year period. Is the discrimination that Israel subjects non-Jews to exponentially worse than how the Sudan treats its non-Muslims? The 59th UN Assembly (2004-2005) passed 19 resolutions condemning Israeli treatment of Palestinians and none condemning Sudan. Are we to believe that this is somehow a balanced working view of the World and not a form of Jew Hatred?
Then when the US vetoes such slanted measures, and they are slanted simply based on it being unreasonable that Israel is the subject of over 90% of country specific resolutions condemning behavior, people claim this is on basis upon which to build the charge that the United States is unduly beholden to Israeli lobbying. The simple fact is the resolutions should have never been passed, and even if a Security Council member hated the State of Israel, it should have the moral courage to veto such resolutions because they are contrary to the UN charter.
The reason why many Arabs and Muslims hate the United States is because extremists see the US standing between them and victory and domination over Israel. It galls extremists that Jews can enter the Tomb of the Patriarchs and can now walk past the 7th step. For many extremists honor demands submission of non-Muslims.
In answer to the charge of dispossessing Arabs in Palestine, perhaps someone shouldn’t set up a home in a land claimed by another people. For nearly two-thousand years part of the Passover Seder has included the line, next year in Jerusalem. If Christians conquered Mecca , I’d expect Muslims to work to regain their holy city for time immemorial, and I’d have no sympathy for those who set up their homes in Mecca when it was finally taken back.
Too many people naively believe that somehow all Israel has to do is return to 1967 borders and everything will be fine in the Middle East, and Arab nations will be happy, extremists appetites will be sated, and the World’s ills would be cured. Of course this naively ignores the numerous wars fought before 1967, the cross border attacks, the shelling of Israeli cities, the status of refuges and the simple fact that many in the region simply cannot accept a non-Muslim country in it’s midst. To them they conquered this area long ago and nobody can conquer it back as that goes against Allah.