Angel Of Peace? (I)
Before Angel of Peace Mahmoud Abbas gets his wings (“Controversy Over Pope’s ‘Angel of Peace’ Remark to Abbas,’ news story, May 22), I would humbly suggest that the nominating authority make an excursion to Bethlehem, where Christians lived for centuries, and ask them (if they find any) what they think of this particular angel.
I had been to Bethlehem several times during Israeli rule and made friends with Christian Arabs there. I returned to Bethlehem when it was under PA control and learned that my Christian friends and their co-religionists had been forced to abandon their homes due to pressure from the Muslim majority.
Joseph Ceder
Far Rockaway, NY
Angel Of Peace? (II)
If the pope and the Vatican hierarchy believe that calling Abbas an angel of peace will stop the ongoing decimation of Christian communities throughout the Middle East, they are mistaken.
Abbas, with his long record of Holocaust denial and unity government with Hamas, has time and time again rejected all peace overtures, as did his predecessors.
Since the PA came to power in the so-called Palestinian territories, there has been a mass migration of Christians from the area, with Bethlehem now a Muslim city.
Are the pope and the Catholic hierarchy naive enough to believe that their actions will stem the rising tide of anti-Christian persecution and massacres in that region?
Nelson Marans
Silver Spring, MD
The Real Aggressors
In “Knowing Who’s On Our Side and Who’s Not” (op-ed, May 22), Ed Lion noted the anti-Semitic overtones of some of the rioters in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri. He quoted one of them: “This is an uprising. We’re rising up against discrimination, just like the Palestinians do to the Israelis!”
It seems that truth and falsehood mean nothing to these rioters. First it was the phrase “Hands up, don’t shoot” that Michael Brown allegedly said in Ferguson – which in fact he never did. Now they’re buying into something just as false.
What’s interesting is how the preposterous notion that Palestinian terrorists are freedom fighters and Israelis are the aggressors is being inadvertently disproved in the U.S. on a regular basis.
Every time there’s an attack in Israel by Palestinian terrorist, police here in New York City (and perhaps in other cities across the country) are posted in front of synagogues. After the November 2014 terror attack on the shul in Har Nof, Jerusalem, many yeshivas and synagogues took extra security measures.
Why are there no police guarding mosques? Why don’t mosques hire security guards after such events? After all, if Israelis are the aggressors, doesn’t anyone expect an Israeli to walk into a mosque and shoot up the place?
The answer is obvious. Police fan out to synagogues because, despite the often repeated lie about Israelis being the aggressors and Palestinians being the victims, the world knows very well it’s the Palestinian terrorists and their sympathizers who are the barbarians. And mosques don’t hire security guards because the world, including those who perpetrate anti-Semitic lies, knows very well neither Israelis nor their sympathizers are terrorists.
Josh Greenberger
Brooklyn, NY
High Price Of Kosher Meat
In his May 15 op-ed, “Rabbi Akiva: A Model for Midlife Career Change and Renewal,” Dr. Joel Verstaendig mentioned “the high price of kosher food” as one of the problems Rabbi Akiva didn’t have to deal with.
The high price of kosher meat was brought home to me this week when I went to buy some salami and found that the price per pound was nearly ten dollars. The last time I purchased salami, some months ago, the price was under seven dollars. I asked the store manager about this sharp price hike and he answered that the item “goes through many hands.”