It should be noted, however, that America has a checkered history with Jews. Certainly America was no friend of the Jews in two pivotal moments of our history – the Holocaust and the creation of Israel.
The U.S. refused to bomb the rail lines leading to Auschwitz and its crematoria, and three short years after defenseless Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust, President Truman refused to supply any weapons to the beleaguered Jews of Israel. Yet America, in that era, was willing to sacrifice so much blood and treasure for Koreans in the Korean War.
Had America armed Israel in 1948, the Jews would have captured the West Bank and driven out the Arab enemy. Instead, Israel now confronts the juggernaut of world pressure and hostility over its presence there. And today America refuses to include Israel among the dozens of countries that are part of the U.S. Visa Waiver Plan, which means that an astonishing 32 percent of young Israelis are rejected for tourist visas.
Jacob Mendlovic
Toronto, Canada
Lessons Israel Needs To Learn
I must commend Shelley Benveniste on her excellent April 18 op-ed article, “Trite But True: A Lesson for Passover 2014.” The article is anything but trite. It’s an excellent assessment of the shortcomings of Israel’s collective mindset.
Israel’s penchant for appeasing its enemies was already evident immediately after its miraculous Six-Day War victory, when it gave control of the mosque on the Temple Mount back to the Arabs. But imagine a scenario where Israel is in control of Mecca and the Arabs recapture it and find a synagogue there: Is there any question the synagogue would be destroyed immediately?
So Israel not only can learn something from Vladimir Putin about quick, decisive annexation of land, as Benveniste writes, but it also can learn something from the Arabs about guarding what one considers holy.
Josh Greenberger
Brooklyn, NY