Letters to the editor

in recent letters

Editor,

Cynthia Burgess, Dec. 15, said that Pat Gray joined a group and named seven people, all who in my opinion hate Israel and Jews and by their words are anti-Semitic. The saying that "birds of a feather flock together” is true. I would be ashamed and embarrassed to be linked to that group.

Norman Licht

San Carlos

Global warming

sounds good

Editor,

Forget about Al Gore. I will take a little global warming right now.

Jack Green

San Mateo

Defending our freedom

Editor,

Thank you, Keith Kreitman for your column "My man on the moon” in the Dec. 1 edition of the Daily Journal. You help us understand how appalling war is. The sacrifice you and your fellow veterans made was enormous. I want to thank you on behalf of all my relatives who you helped to liberate from Nazi concentration camps. Fifty aunts, uncles and cousins did not survive the death camps of Europe, including my great-uncle who at 80 years old - roughly the age you must be now, died on the cattle train to Auschwitz. If only you had come sooner.

I want to thank you especially for guarding our freedoms — our freedoms to worship God (or not worship) as we choose and for our freedoms of speech and press which allow me, you, Scott Abramson, Pat Gray and all of us frequent letter writers to have public debates about the important issues of our time. You couldn’t talk to (or about) Hitler. Freedom of speech was not a right in Germany in the 30s and 40s or in any of the countries that soon came under Nazi domination.

I applaud those who today have the courage that you showed, to fight for the rights of people who live under tyrannical governments in the Muslim world, where one faces prison or death for utilizing these rights that we hold so dear. When the people in Islamic and other oppressive countries can fight about issues with words as we do, we will have a much better chance of avoiding fighting any other way.

Sheree Roth

Palo Alto

When you’re a hammer, everything’s a nail

Editor,

In response to Cynthia Burgess letter of Dec. 13, I would like to address two points: anti-Semitism and civility of discourse.

It has been said that when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you are an anti-Semite, or for PR convenience, an anti-Israeli, all wrongs in the world are caused by Jews. Whatever reason one may claim for justifying his/her antipathy toward Jews, there are dozens of historical facts contradicting this reason. The common fallacy running through centuries is blaming Jews for conspiracy to achieve worldwide dominance. Here come the facts again. The Inquisition, pogroms, Holocaust- they all are the indisputable proof that Jews could not defend themselves, let alone subdue others. Actually, the AIPAC has come into being as a defense vehicle of the Jewish State. It doesn’t have any other goal then maintaining close relationship with Israel’s only true ally, the USA.

Even with such an emotionally charged issue as anti-Semitism it behooves the sides to remain within the limits of civility. It is enough to look broader on ethnicity and religion to realize that blaming Jews of any country for their devotion to Israel is patently wrong. Catholics are loyal to the Vatican, and Muslims to Saudi Arabia’s Mecca and Medina. And the world is not bothered about it. Of course, nobody threatens them, while the cradle of Judaism is constantly under attack. Yes, Jews are concerned about Israel. But assigning "homeland” based on religious background, as Ms. Burgess does, is a sign of bigotry and prejudice.

Vladimir Kaplan

San Mateo

Caggiano proven wrong

Editor,

Mr. Caggiano’s recent letter about Gaza makes up the facts. His statement that Jews were not original inhabitants of Gaza is provably wrong. And, if a maximum of 7,000 Jews lived there from 1967 until last year, you do the math. That’s not exactly a flood of colonization.

Jews were in Gaza before the Romans were there. True they were expelled many times by various conquerors but always returned. However after the 1929 Arab riots and the subsequent massacre of Jews in Safed and Hebron by Arabs, in which over 130 Gaza Jews were killed, the British prohibited Jews from living in Gaza to quell tension.

Egypt captured Gaza in the 1948 war, but interestingly, the Palestinian Arabs didn’t want to establish a state there even before 1967, when Israel recaptured it in the Six Day War. That war happened because Egyptian President Nasser promised to throw the (Israeli) Jews into the sea.

Mr. Caggiano then tries to create moral equivalence between natural Jewish population growth in Gaza and the right to murder Israeli civilians, which Hamas enjoys doing. His argument implies that murder is justified when people add bedrooms to their homes for new children. Careful, Mr. Caggiano, your prejudice is showing.

Desmond Tuck

San Mateo

Where is my homeland?

Editor,

Gee whiz. Can’t folks like Cynthia Burgess, in her letter in the Dec. 13 edition of the Daily Journal, who disagree with my positions keep to the facts instead of name calling: Insinuating I am a traitor, more worried more about my "homeland Israel,” than America.

For the edification of Ms Burgess: America is my homeland. I am proud of that. And why does Ms. Burgess continuously unleash her vitriol on Israel, which singularly among nations in the Middle East allows women and gays to live lives of dignity, contrary to some of its neighbors which put to the lash female victims of rape? As for the facts about the "stinking” rhetoric Burgess accuses me of: Yes, our intelligence agency thinks Iran stopped actual nuclear weapons production but it also reports it clearly did not stop development of its Al Shahab missiles, nor more importantly, its actual uranium enrichment program. Once that is brought to fruition, the same intelligence also admits, it will be quick and easy to resume the actual weapons and install them in their missiles. I remained worried about Iran’s threat to America.

Scott Abramson

San Mateo