Letters to the editor

Editor,

Is Keith Kreitman serious when he compares the "infallibility of the pope” to the power granted Islamic leaders under the Islamic Revolution of 1979? I checked the Internet and learned that the papal doctrine is limited to matters of "faith and morals.” I also discovered that it was invoked only once and dealt with Mary, the mother of Jesus. Kreitman writes that the supreme authority in Iran "controls just about everything, including commanding the armed forces.” I hope someday to see the ayatollah’s command limited to a force about the size of the Swiss Guard.

James O. Clifford Sr.

Redwood City

Kreitman’s work is fictitious

Editor,

In response to Keith Kreitman’s phantasmagorical imagination in the June 20 edition of the Daily Journal ("Let’s nuke the (obscenities)” column), produces an idyllic, utopian world in which Muslims love Christians and Jews, Mohammed is buddy-buddy with Moses and the West has nothing to worry about from radical Islam, at least from those in Iran. Kreitman conveniently omits passages from the Koran calling for death to Jews, Iran’s long-standing, heavy-duty support for proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah, whose charters calls for the annihilation of Israel and whose terrorist actions against Israel support these murderous words, Iran’s own self-declared goals and strategies to nuke Israel into oblivion or the Islamic state of dhimmitude, meaning second class citizenship for Jews and Christians. In Kreitman’s world, these are minor issues that must not be permitted to interfere with his fertile imagination. To bolster his make-believe universe he cites columnist Richard Cohen. Maybe Kreitman is unaware that Cohen wrote the incredibly bizarre and incendiary statement that "Israel, too, engaged some in ethnic cleansing — or why else all those Palestinian refugees?” (Feb. 25 edition of the San Jose Mercury News, Opinion). In that same column, Cohen also claims that Israel should learn to "[lose] gracefully.”

Several years prior to that column, Cohen called the creation of Israel a "mistake.” Given this sterling record, it is not surprising that Kreitman leans on Cohen. Since Kreitman seems incapable of using the word Holocaust without quotation marks, perhaps they are "buddy-buddy,” like Mohammed and Moses. If Kreitman’s writings are given public exposure in the future, they should be clearly labeled "fiction.”

Larry Yelowitz

Sunnyvale

Holocaust Museum should remain

Editor,

Letter writer Frank Scafani ("Put the museum in Europe” in the June 23 edition) shows both insensitivity and ignorance in his letter decrying the existence of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. First, the Holocaust Museum not only commemorates the unique evil of the Holocaust, but also stands as testimony to our own determination never to let such a tragedy happen again to anyone, anywhere. With the dedication of this museum, Elie Wiesel’s vow, "Never shall I forget these things,” became a national creed.

Second, although the United States did not perpetrate the Holocaust, we do share responsibility for the genocide insofar as our government was aware of what was going on, had the means to intervene and yet did nothing. By late 1942, we knew that some two million Jews had already been murdered and millions more were in imminent danger, and yet we refused to take any serious action to stop it until 1944, after millions more had been killed. The U.S. State Department in particular vigorously opposed and actively prevented rescue efforts that might have saved millions of innocent lives, perhaps including those of my great-grandfather and dozens of my cousins. I strongly suggest that anyone interested in this topic read "The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945,” by David S. Wyman.

Stephen A. Silver

San Francisco