September 14, 2006
Letters to the Editor
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Well, how about a series of 30-second TV spots that compare, say, Hiroshima after the atomic blast to bustling, multicultural Tel Aviv today, or show Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while making a speech denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel's destruction, morphing into Hitler at Nuremberg, accompanied by radio spots and newspaper layouts? We Jews can count on no one but ourselves and committed American Christians. We're among the most influential, affluent, media-savvy people in the world, so why are Iran and Hezbollah beating us at public relations?"Rueben Gordon
North Hollywood
Facing a Madman
No prominent academic or cultural personality in the West has protested against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call to destroy Israel. Where is the leadership in the United States and Europe? Why are voices not being raised in protest around the globe, recruiting public opinion against Ahmadinejad's insanity? Iran is advancing with giant steps toward the manufacture of a nuclear bomb, and there are countries, among them Russia, that are helping Iran realize this dream for money and for ideological (anti-Semitic) reasons.
Are we becoming appeasers once again. Recall how the appeasement tactics of pre-WWII caused such an abhorrent disaster. We experienced a Holocaust in which six million Jews were targeted and destroyed, along with millions of others. The world was brought to its knees because of one madman. We are once again faced with a genuine madman as we hide from reality. Have we not learned from history?
Harry Grunstein
Hampstead, Quebec
Propaganda
It's interesting to hear about Jewish leftist Barry Gordon's radio show. Good stuff and all that ("Radio Host Shows It's All Right to Be Left," Sept. 8). However, Robert Jaffee's piece includes propaganda from notorious Israel and America-hater Noam Chomsky about the failed peace process with Arafat in the late '90s.
He calls Gordon "well-informed" and then attributes to Chomsky, without critique, that the Taba process had led to an agreement "that the Palestinians and Iranians had signed on to" but that Israel allegedly backed out of. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it's well documented by former President Bill Clinton, among others.
At both Camp David and Taba, Arafat never made a counteroffer to increasingly generous Israeli offers. Essentially everything that Arafat claimed he wanted was offered in exchange for a permanent peace and was turned down. There is absolutely no credence to the comment that "Israel backed out."
This calls into question Gordon being "well-informed" but more importantly, calls into question Jaffee as a journalist who never analyzes or counters these spurious claims, either in the interview with Gordon or in his article.
Does The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles really want to be a vehicle for far-left Chomsky's anti-Israel lies and propaganda?
David Schechter
Los Angeles
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