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TO BENEFIT PEOPLE WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

Is It Ethical To
Evade Debts?
In Ken Gross's article "Your Credit
Score: Don't Sweat The Small Stuff"
(Feb. 9, page 66), we are told that we
can get ourselves out of a financial
pickle and set ourselves up with a nest
egg of $958,596.
All we have to do, in this example, is
bargain our debt of $100,000 down to
$30,000, pay that off and begin saving
the rest of the money that should have
gone to paying off the original debt.
The math works out well; I'm
troubled, however, by the thought that
we are left with more than $900,000
and slipped out of an obligation to pay
our bills. Why not suggest that, from
the more than $900,000, we pay the
remaining $70,000? By this example,
we got rich by stiffing someone else.
I don't care if it was credit card debt,
a mortgage or a hospital bill. What
does this say about us?

Stu Raben

Commerce Township

J Street Members Should
Examine Hamas' Charter
It is a pity that Toby Citrin's "My Long
Journey From 12th Street To J Street"
(Feb. 9, page 40) brought him to
Palestinian villages in West Bank and
not to Sderot, Israel.
A few days ago, eight rockets-
slammed into the backyard of a kin-
dergarten in Sderot. These habitual
rockets from Gaza are fired to kill
Jews. This is what Hamas declares in
its charter, and this is what Fatah said
in its Hebron declaration. The quotes
from llamas are well-known and call
not only to destroy Israel but also to
kill Jews worldwide (including Jewish J
Street members).
Now that Fatah and llamas are
creating a "unity" government, the
Hamas Charter applies to both. It says:
"[Peace] initiatives, and so-called
peaceful solutions and international
conferences are in contradiction to the
principles of the Islamic Resistance
Movement ... Those conferences are
no more than a means to appoint the
infidels as arbitrators in the lands of
Islam ... There is no solution for the
Palestinian problem except by Jihad.
Initiatives, proposals and international
conferences are but a waste of time, an
exercise in futility." (Article 13).
Israel was told by Abbas that
Palestine must be Judenrein, that is,
no Jews will be allowed to reside in
Palestinian's Palestine. This is already
true for Gaza. There are three con-

.

cepts that are mandatory for Muslim/
Palestinians. Unfortunately, J Street
never understood them, and it seems
that eating hummus in Ramallah
was decisive for Mr. Citrin, not the
philosophy that his Palestinian hosts
whispered:
1.Waqf — all mandatory Palestine
is Islamic land — including Tel Aviv,
Netanya, etc. As written in llamas
Covenant: "The land of Palestine is
an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession]
consecrated for future Moslem genera-
tions until Judgment Day. No one can
renounce it or any part, or abandon it
or any part of it:' (Article 11).
2. Taqyya — the right of a Muslim
to lie if it serves Islam. Thus llamas,
Fatah's partner, already reneged on
all agreements between Israel and the
Palestinians. Even if they would have
agreed on any item, then they,may
renege on that agreement whenever
they feel fit.
3.Hudna — Muslims can call cease-
fire and violate it when they are strong
enough to beat the enemy. This is the
reason that, despite a formal cease-fire,
rockets are still launched on Sderot.
It is almost a year since the mas-
sacre of the Jewish Fogel family. Five
members of that family were butch-
ered and a knife was left in the heart of
a 3-month-old baby.
The criminals who confessed to
the brutal.murder were Amjad Awad,
19, and Hakim Awad, 18, residents of
Awarta, an Arab village in the West
Bank. Awarta is not far from "Martyr
Square" in Ramallah where the residents
admire brutal killers and suicide bomb-
ers. Those killed more than a thousand
Jewish women, children and babies —
sisters and brothers of Mr. Citrin.
He and J Street do not recognize that
one cannot deal with people who have
no moral foundation.

Dr. Irving Barr

Bloomfield Township

Israel, Though Not Perfect,
Beats The Alternatives
In Toby Citrin's article, "My Long
Journey From 12th Street To J Street"
(Feb. 9, page 40), he describes
Palestinian suffering. I would not dis-
pute his statements. But in his strong
identification with the Palestinian view
of the situation, he has forgotten about
the suffering of Israelis, both Jews and
non-Jews, at the hands of Palestinian
and Arab terrorists.
He never mentions terrorism — the
main reason for the security fence,
the checkpoints, and in some cases,

the Jewish settlements, all of which he
condemns.
Assuming he knows Israeli his-
tory, his Palestinian viewpoint appar-
ently has caused him to also forget
that all the means that J Street offers
for establishing a two-state solution
have been tried by various Israeli
administrations and have failed, with
devastating results for the security of
all Israelis.
It is astounding to me that he
assumes the Israeli government is not
aware of "the facts" of remaining a
democracy when Israelis have more or
less always been in a state of war. From
the beginning of the modern Israeli
state, its leaders and people have had
to deal with this very difficult issue
of maintaining a balance between the
demands of an open society and those
required by security from enemies.
Mr. Citrin blames Israel for all the
Palestinians' problems: forget the
intransigence of Arab leaders, the cor-
ruption in their institutions, the hate-
ful propaganda fed to their children.
It's Israel's fault because it is not a
perfect democracy, living up to his and
J Street's standards. But it is not the
either/or situation Mr. Citrin presents
of Israel "remaining a democracy" or
of choosing to be a "non-democratic
homeland!'
In meeting the essential duty of every
democracy — to provide for the secu-
rity of its citizens — Israel must take
actions that are not always pleasant and
nice; what democracy has not had to
limit some rights in such situations?
I believe an imperfect democracy
is better than none at all. When Israel
still controlled the disputed areas
of Gaza and the West Bank, the U.N.
Human Development Reports indi-
cated that the Arab inhabitants had a
better quality of life than most of their
Arab Muslim and Christian brethren
in Muslim countries. This still holds
true for Israeli Arabs today who would,
I think, agree that Israel, though not
perfect, certainly beats the alternatives.

STANDING L to R: Rabbi Levi Shemtov

(Friendship Circle), Mark Lit (JCC),
SEATED L to R: Rick Loewenstein ()ARC),
Barbara Nurenberg (JVS)

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Bloomfield Hills

Correction

• In the JN's college section, jewish@
edu, Sammy Dubin's byline was inad-
vertently left off his story ("Sharing
Ideas:' Feb. 16, page 18). Dubin of West
Bloomfield is a sophomore at Central
Michigan University and president of
its Hillel.

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February 23 • 2012 5