Protest Against Abbas, Feb. 19
We urge everyone to join with Americans for a Safe Israel/AFSI, along with like-minded groups and individuals, on Presidents Day, Monday, Feb. 19, at noon, to protest against the terrorist Mahmoud Abbas being allowed into the U.S., into New York, and into the UN.
The protest will take place at the Isaiah Wall, 44th St. & First Avenue, across from the UN.
Abbas, the terrorist “president” of the Palestinian Authority, is in the 13th year of his four-year term. Is there a smell of something rotten here? He continues to be a Holocaust denier, to praise Arab terrorist murderers, and to urge Arab youth to become martyrs for Allah. He has denounced President Trump for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.
The situation is unconscionable. Just as Mayor Giuliani removed Yasir Arafat from an event at Philharmonic Hall in 1995, so Abbas should be prevented from even setting foot on U.S. soil.
Alert your friends, family, and neighbors to join you at the protest with flags, banners, signs, and righteous indignation regarding Abbas’s visit to the U.S.
For further information, contact AFSI at 212-828-2424 or judy@afsi.org.
Helen Freedman & Judy Freedman Kadish
Co-Executive Directors
Americans for a Safe Israel
Not A Trump Fan
Today I was informed by the bookkeeper at my job how much extra money will be in my paycheck because of the tax bill proposed and passed by President Trump and Republicans. It’s not much at all. In fact, it’s laughable.
The fact is, I would rather not have a penny of that and instead have a president who doesn’t constantly speak to and about others in a rude, crude, immature, and bizarre manner. A manner that goes against Jewish teachings about respecting others and that is antithetical to everything we teach our children about self-control in the way we speak and the way we act.
Joel Allen
Brooklyn, NY
Truman And Holocaust Survivors
Early in his administration President Truman wrote to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill about the Jewish Holocaust survivors saying: “
There is a great interest in America in the Palestine problem. The drastic restrictions imposed on Jewish immigration by the British White Paper of May 1939 continue to provoke passionate protest from Americans most interested in Palestine and the Jewish problem. They fervently urge the lifting of these restrictions which deny to the Jews, who have been so cruelly uprooted by ruthless Nazi persecutions, entrance into the land which represents for so many of them their only hope of survival.
“Knowing your deep and sympathetic interest in Jewish settlement in Palestine, I venture to express to you the hope that the British government may find it possible without delay to lift the restrictions of the White Paper on Jewish immigration to Palestine.”
This message was sent in late July of 1945. Shortly afterward, Churchill was voted out of office.
Concerning the policy of Churchill’s successors, Prime Minister Clement Atlee and Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, Abba Eban wrote in The Palestine Post (now The Jerusalem Post) in 1946:
“Nine months have passed since the president of the United proposed the admission of 100,000 Jews [Palestine]. For many tedious weeks Mr. Attlee lingered beside the still waters of moral duty reluctant to plunge and adamant against being pushed. He has appointed a committee to take the temperature of the water and estimated the relative consequences of courage and timidity.”
Had Truman’s advice been followed by Britain’s leaders, thousands of lives would have been saved and at least one war might have been averted.
Reuven Solomon
Forest Hills, NY
‘Wrong Angle’
Sara Lehmann’s January 19 Right Angle column was definitely the “Wrong Angle.”
Ms. Lehmann criticizes the two Israeli soldiers who did not respond to kicks and slaps by a 16-year-old Palestinian girl, her mother, and her 21-year-old female cousin, and instead walked away from the confrontation.
The incident was captured on video and made these “brave” women look like heroes in the Arab world for attacking armed Israeli soldiers.
Ms. Lehmann condemned the soldiers for making Israel look weak, and even accused them of “cowardice” for not defending themselves.
I, on the other hand, think the soldiers acted with admirable restraint, and should be applauded, not criticized.
It would have been easy for these soldiers to “take the bait” and to respond to the provocation by retaliating against the women.
Ms. Lehmann thinks the video showed Israeli soldiers in a poor light because they walked away. Would she rather see a video of armed Israeli soldiers hitting or throwing unarmed women to the ground, then handcuffing them as the women scream and cry?
Would that show Israeli soldiers in a better light?
If the Arabs think the video shows Israeli weakness, so be it. We are not like them. Hopefully, we hold ourselves to a higher standard.
Sure it would be easy to retaliate, but then we would be just like our enemies. A professional army or police force follows the law, exercises self-discipline, and does not give in to temptation. This is nothing new for Jews. Exercising self-restraint and self-discipline is a Torah value: “You shall not follow the desires of your heart or your eyes which lead you astray” (Numbers 15:37).
Indeed, to respond to this provocation with force, as Ms. Lehmann suggests the soldiers should have, would be contrary to Jewish values.
And lest one think this letter-writer is just another left wing liberal, I would like to applaud the op-ed by N. Aaron Troodler in the same issue. Right on the money, Mr. Troodler! That article should be required reading for all those on the left who criticize the “brutal” Israeli occupation.
Jerald D. Kreppel
Brooklyn, NY