Letters to the Editor
Xanthro
Published Letters: 522 Editor's Choice: 47
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publius
[Read the article: The catastrophe that never ends]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]publius: First, I stand corrected about the Golan Heights. (The Arab population is relatively quite small there in any event, no doubt influencing Israel's decision to give the all of the people living there citizenship rights.)
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No, the reason why Arabs in the Golan Heights have voting rights is because Israel annexed the territory, so it is now part of Israel, and thus all those living there have voting rights, regardless of religion or ethnicity.
Israel has not annexed the West Bank because it has always envisioned it as part of a future Palenstinian state.
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publius: Second, as a US citizen I don't want my tax dollars going towards extending the almost-40-year-and-counting occupation of the West Bank. If Israel wants to continue to control that area while not giving most of the people that live there then that's their business - but count my money out of it. As an American I put the US's interests first, and it's not in the US's interests to continue bankrolling said occupation.
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None of your tax dollars go to Israeli uses in the West Bank, anymore than your tax dollars go to building Qassam rockets produced by Hamas. Sure, we give money to many countries, usually in the form of aid or loan guarantees, but claiming that the money is used for a purpose to which it is not is unethical.
Usually, this argument falls under the lines of saying that if the United States didn't provide X amount of money, then money spent in the West Bank would have to cover X, thus US tax dollars support occupation of the West Bank.
That line of reasoning would lend itself to saying that the US funds building of Qassam rockets. It's an invalid argument.
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publius: Third, former Israeli Foreign Minister and U.N. Ambassador Abba Eban and I shared a bemused chuckle over your attempt to equate the Israeli occupation with US citizens living in Germany:
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Really, you and Abba Eban shared a chuckle over my remarks despite the fact that he died in November 2002?
Exactly, how did you manage this séance? Do you always presume to speak for the dead?
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publius: Moreover: the United States doesn't, for example, build an entire highway infrastructure all over Germany that only Americans in Germany can use, it doesn't build residential 'settlements' all over Germany that only Americans can live in, it's not constructing a large wall that snakes through Germany with checkpoints everywhere that restricts the flow of Germans, it doesn't take up Germany's water resources and the like without due compensation, and Americans living in Germany don't routinely harass Germans.
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It's clear that you've never been to Germany or you'd understand that your arguments are not only off topic, but wholly wrong, since the United States does or did do much of what you are claiming they don't do.
First, The topic was voting rights. US citizens in Germany, as in any country, can vote in US elections, despite being in territory not part of the US. The same in Israel. Israelis who live in the West Bank can vote in Israeli elections, while there non Israeli neighbors cannot. In the same manner the Americans living in Germany can vote in US elections while their non American neighbors cannot.
Second, the United States builds and has built schools, roads, cities, hospitals and Universities in Germany that Germans cannot use, nor attend. The US even got Germany to pay for much of it.
Like the infrastructure Israel builds in the West Bank, these projects in Germany will eventually revert to German control when the United States leaves. Perhaps the Germans will use them more constructively than how the Palestinians used the green houses left in Gaza for their use.
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It's rape and murder no matter the victim's age
[Read the article: Should a rape victim, at age 14, be called a woman?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This crime is not more horrible because it happened to a 14 year old than if it happened to a 25 year old.
I refer to all women who are between 13 and 17 as young women, just as I refer to men in that age range as young men. Perhaps different areas of the country use different terms, but the little semantic debates do nothing but obscure the evil nature of this crime.
A person was raped and her family murdered. There’s no need to talk about statutory rape, or pedophilia, because the perpetrators and both rapists and murderers and should be executed.
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Jews and their haters
[Read the article: Lebanon pays for Hezbollah's sins]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anytime Israel or anything to do with Jewish people is discussed, the same tired old Jews Haters have to make their voices known.
It's sad that "progress" is measured in at least most of the time these idiots don't post under their own name. Why, because they understand their point is stupid and they don't want to be held accountable, yet they can't pass up any opportunity to spit on a Jew.