Dear Editor,
According to The Washington Post "Israel might have avoided this fight...by relaxing the economic blockade" [Israel Strikes Dec. 28, 2008]. But the facts don't support this. Israel gave Gaza to the Palestinians in August of 2005. Almost immediately, the Palestinians turned the Gaza Strip into a launching pad for rockets and mortars firing them into Israel, cease-fire or no cease-fire, incessantly. The embargo began as a non-violent means to curtail the rocket fire. Therefore, unless The Washington Post has some evidence toward the contrary, they owe their readers a retraction of the atrocious claim that relaxing the embargo would have had any positive impact at all.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Letter to The Washington Post
To: letters@washpost.com
Subject: Turk Al-Faisal "Peace for the Mideast" - Dec. 26, 2008
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:19:33 +0000
Dear Editor,
Turk Al-Faisal, in "Peace for the Mideast", Dec. 26, 2008, states that for the Palestinians, Israel's founding is "the day the dream of an independent, Arab-Palestinian state was shattered." I am not sure how The Washington Post, even in an editorial, could allow such outrageous fiction to occur in their newspaper. The Palestinians were offered a state in the UN Partition agreement of 1947, which would not have been impeded by Israel’s founding. However, the Palestinians chose to go for it all - in an attempt to destroy the Jewish state - and lost. The Palestinians, ultimately, have shattered their own dreams. They have been offered a state many times since then but refused to accept it unless it was on their terms. Until they stop blaming the side that they tried to exterminate, and look inward and accept that no one, especially the losers of wars, gets everything they want in negotiations; their future goal of a state will continue to be a dream.
Subject: Turk Al-Faisal "Peace for the Mideast" - Dec. 26, 2008
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:19:33 +0000
Dear Editor,
Turk Al-Faisal, in "Peace for the Mideast", Dec. 26, 2008, states that for the Palestinians, Israel's founding is "the day the dream of an independent, Arab-Palestinian state was shattered." I am not sure how The Washington Post, even in an editorial, could allow such outrageous fiction to occur in their newspaper. The Palestinians were offered a state in the UN Partition agreement of 1947, which would not have been impeded by Israel’s founding. However, the Palestinians chose to go for it all - in an attempt to destroy the Jewish state - and lost. The Palestinians, ultimately, have shattered their own dreams. They have been offered a state many times since then but refused to accept it unless it was on their terms. Until they stop blaming the side that they tried to exterminate, and look inward and accept that no one, especially the losers of wars, gets everything they want in negotiations; their future goal of a state will continue to be a dream.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Letter to The Washington Post
From: mberenhaus@comcast.net
To: ombudsman@washpost.com
Subject: Objective pursuits Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 04:21:19 +0000
Dear Editor/Ombudsman/Staff,
According to The Washington Post (Israeli Candidates Vow To Bring Down Hamas, Dec. 22, 2008), "the cease-fire had been eroding since early November, when a deadly Israeli raid prompted Palestinians to step up attacks." The Palestinians didn't need any prompting - they had been doing quite nicely on their own initiative having bombarded Israel before then on an almost daily basis, cease-fire or no cease-fire, with thousands of mortars and rockets - their way of saying thank you for being handed the Gaza Strip by Israel in 2005.
With Washington Post coverage, it is always Israel that "triggers" or "prompts" Palestinian violence. This is so in-line with Palestinian propaganda and the Post has become a purveyor of it. In this case, if the Post wanted to attempt a modicum of neutrality, it could have said "in what the Palestinians said prompted them to step up their attacks." But being neutral, apparently, is not what the Post is out to accomplish.
Michael Berenhaus
To: ombudsman@washpost.com
Subject: Objective pursuits Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 04:21:19 +0000
Dear Editor/Ombudsman/Staff,
According to The Washington Post (Israeli Candidates Vow To Bring Down Hamas, Dec. 22, 2008), "the cease-fire had been eroding since early November, when a deadly Israeli raid prompted Palestinians to step up attacks." The Palestinians didn't need any prompting - they had been doing quite nicely on their own initiative having bombarded Israel before then on an almost daily basis, cease-fire or no cease-fire, with thousands of mortars and rockets - their way of saying thank you for being handed the Gaza Strip by Israel in 2005.
With Washington Post coverage, it is always Israel that "triggers" or "prompts" Palestinian violence. This is so in-line with Palestinian propaganda and the Post has become a purveyor of it. In this case, if the Post wanted to attempt a modicum of neutrality, it could have said "in what the Palestinians said prompted them to step up their attacks." But being neutral, apparently, is not what the Post is out to accomplish.
Michael Berenhaus
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Letter to The Washington Post
From: mberenhaus@comcast.net To: letters@washpost.com Cc: ombudsman@washpost.com Subject: letter to the editor Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:48:19 +0000
Dear Editor,
Linda Gradstein, in In Gaza, No Cash for Holiday - [Dec. 8, 2008], shares yet another human interest story on Hamas-controlled Gaza - source of now over 10,000 rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli citizens in the past eight years. In this one, as attacks on Israel increase and Hamas prepared to end its six-month truce, she speaks of Ali Hussein, who, with some of his salary, buys sweets for his four sons. Sweets are given to Gazan children typically to commemorate special events. This was most notably captured on film when 3,000 Americans were incinerated on Sept. 11, 2001 - sweets were everywhere. Gazan children also receive sweets when Israeli men, women and children are murdered by suicide bombers in pizza shops, hotels, and night clubs.
With all the rocket and mortar fire directed at them, the article reports that Israel still allows Gazans by the thousands into Israel for hospitalizations, to visit their family, and to go to holy sites. Contrast this to when Arabs had control of Jewish sites in the Old City of Jerusalem for 19 years. Israelis never fired a rocket or mortar but were denied access to their holy sites for the 19 years and every Old City synagogue was destroyed.
Michael Berenhaus
Dear Editor,
Linda Gradstein, in In Gaza, No Cash for Holiday - [Dec. 8, 2008], shares yet another human interest story on Hamas-controlled Gaza - source of now over 10,000 rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli citizens in the past eight years. In this one, as attacks on Israel increase and Hamas prepared to end its six-month truce, she speaks of Ali Hussein, who, with some of his salary, buys sweets for his four sons. Sweets are given to Gazan children typically to commemorate special events. This was most notably captured on film when 3,000 Americans were incinerated on Sept. 11, 2001 - sweets were everywhere. Gazan children also receive sweets when Israeli men, women and children are murdered by suicide bombers in pizza shops, hotels, and night clubs.
With all the rocket and mortar fire directed at them, the article reports that Israel still allows Gazans by the thousands into Israel for hospitalizations, to visit their family, and to go to holy sites. Contrast this to when Arabs had control of Jewish sites in the Old City of Jerusalem for 19 years. Israelis never fired a rocket or mortar but were denied access to their holy sites for the 19 years and every Old City synagogue was destroyed.
Michael Berenhaus
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Letter to The Washington Post
Dear Editor,
With all the reporting on how the Palestinians so dearly want a state of their own, how ironic that, when fences are starting to be built, they scurry to live in the state of Israel [Israeli Wall Fuels Migration Dec. 10, 2008]. What the article omitted was the easy access of Palestinians buying houses in the Jewish areas of Jerusalem. If it was the other way around, the Palestinians selling to Jews in Arab areas would be threatened by death for the alleged offense.
With all the reporting on how the Palestinians so dearly want a state of their own, how ironic that, when fences are starting to be built, they scurry to live in the state of Israel [Israeli Wall Fuels Migration Dec. 10, 2008]. What the article omitted was the easy access of Palestinians buying houses in the Jewish areas of Jerusalem. If it was the other way around, the Palestinians selling to Jews in Arab areas would be threatened by death for the alleged offense.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)