Obama may not like Bibi, but that doesn’t make him anti-Israel.
Sandra Mandel
Ramat Gan, Israel
Not The Same Party
Times have changed, as has the Democratic Party. This institution is not the same political organization that existed in my youth some sixty years ago. It no longer speaks to my people either ethically nor politically.
It is not that my views or values have changed but rather it is the Democratic Party that has redirected its focus. What better example than the initial deletion of God, and Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, from the party platform?
Yet the majority of Jewish voters are still very much in the camp of the Democratic Party. Is there a lack of critical thinking? Is there a sense of misplaced guilt? Is it a matter of inertia? I do not have the answers. What I do know is that we are living in perilous times. The fate of Israel is inexorably tied up with the fate of Jews worldwide. Anti-Semitism is on the rise throughout Europe, concomitant with the growth of Islamic communities there.
I am not certain what a Republican victory would mean for the future of the United States. I do know, however, what the present path means and that scares me beyond adequate words.
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
Edison, NJ
Unfair Criticism
Reader Josh Greenberger is of the opinion that the Obama administration has “been a disaster for Israel,” based on events in Egypt and Iran (Letters, Sept. 14). But this is unfair. The ascendance of the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of Mubarak’s departure is lamentable, but the idea that Obama could or should have somehow propped up the Mubarak regime against the will of the Egyptian population – if this is what Mr. Greenberger is suggesting – goes against both political and moral sense. No American president could have said to the Egyptian people “democracy is good for us, but dictatorship is good for you.”
Similarly, we can all agree that the Iranian nuclear agenda is terrifying, but what specifically should Obama have done differently over the past three years? He has made amply clear his administration’s opposition to the Iranian nuclear project, with his secretary of defense recently stating, “We will not allow them to develop a nuclear weapon. And we will exert all options in the effort to ensure that that does not happen.”
If Mr. Greenberger has some well-considered proposition for how the U.S. can straightforwardly pacify Iran’s nuclear ambitions, I do hope he will share his solution with the rest of us. Finally, let’s not forget that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president of Iran in 2005, which we all recognized even then as a profound disaster for Israel and the world.
Are we supposed to hold Obama responsible for that as well?
David Fass
Teaneck NJ