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Opinion Piece Wrong
On Israel's Humanity
David Horovitz's misguided article in
the Times of Israel was not worthy of
reprinting ("A Sobering Moment For
Complacent Israel" July 10, page 26).
The JN amplified Horovitz's case for
collective guilt by placing the photo of
the murdered Muhammad Abu Khdeir
at the top of the page, not easily missed,
staring at the accused.
All Israelis cannot be guilty of con-
tributing to a climate of murder for one
young Palestinian. There is no founda-
tion for equivocation with Hamas, and
his conjecture per environmental and
societal causation for this horrendous
crime is baseless.
Further, it is offensive that "We need
to face up to the fact that our ongoing
rule over the Palestinians ... is corrod-
ing us, blackening our hearts" If Israel
ruled, there would be no war. Israel has
not stopped treating ill and wounded
Palestinians, shipping in food and
medicine, and meeting their needs for
electricity, etc.
Horovitz is out of touch with Israel's
humanity and does not understand
what motivates Israel's enemy.
Barbara Moretsky
Bloomfield Hills
Evil Acts Of A Few
Don't 'Stain Us All'
David Horovitz is shocked and dis-
mayed to have learned that there are
Jewish drunkards, Jewish wife-beaters,
Jewish thugs and, yes, Jewish murderers
(July 10, page 26). Like Mr. Horovitz,
Jews tend to dread these discoveries
because, all too often, anti-Semites see
the sins of the "bad apple" as stemming
from the essential nature of every Jew.
Of course, since the Holocaust, few
Jew-haters are naive enough to use Jew-
baiting for their public utterances. But,
then, there is always the Jewish state.
Thus Israel is singled out for some of
the harshest criticism and opprobrium
on the planet, whereas states habitu-
ally guilty of the most heinous acts on
the planet are given a pass. Somehow
Jews must "turn the other cheek" be
more Christian than the Christians.
Otherwise they are "Jews" But, thug-
gery, vengeance, the glorification of
murder and an obscene pleasure in
enemy blood are hardly commonplace
features of Jewish society or Jews in
general. In fact, the opposite is true.
And, we should note, a crime of
this nature, perpetrated by Jews, was
shocking to Mr. Horovitz and every-
one else, precisely because it is so rare.
Why, then, as Mr. Horovitz claims,
should the vile act of a few Jewish
criminals "stain us all?"
Self-criticism is a valuable trait, a
habit of mind to be encouraged and
cultivated. It produces, has produced,
a thoughtful, caring society and, ulti-
mately, a special wisdom. But, taken
too far, it becomes a kind of arrogance
and moral preening, or worse, a sick-
ness, that is dangerous to our well-
being, as it confirms the prejudices of
our enemies, and subtly damages our
emotional health.
Israel and its Jewish support-
ers must not be sucked in by self-
righteous guilt-mongers into false
equivalencies and a negativity that
undermines their will to defend the
increasingly vulnerable Jewish state.
It's time we stop apologizing for
being Jewish. There's no reason why
Jews have to be indisputably perfect
or irredeemably evil. We are simply
human, no more than that, and cer-
tainly, no less.
Mitzi Alvin
Franklin
Yiddish Limerick,
Ask Attorney
Ken Gross
about...
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Theodor Herzl died 100 years
ago, July 3, 1904.
Herzl's Dream
es, you guessed it '"rock."
Ehr hot gezogt: * Im tirtzu,** a man
so naive,
A shtot far di Yidn,"* how could
you conceive?
Yet, noch fuftzik yohr **** oh well,
there was a shtot called
Israel,
And all because of Herzl, I believe.
* Ehr hot gezogt — he said
** Im tirtzu — if you wish
*** A shtot far di Yidn — a state
for the Jews
**** noch fuftzik yohr — after 50
years
— Rachel Kapen
Correction
• In "The Case For Mediation" (June
19, page 22), the name of a mediator,
attorney Laurel Stuart-Fink, was incor-
rectly reported. Her law firm is the Law
Offices of Laurel Stuart-Fink, PLLC,
and is located in Berkley.
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July 17 • 2014
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