There is much debate as to whether U.S. President Barack Obama is the worst president in his attitude toward Israel. He has suggested co-operation with the Arab world and has reached out to Syria and Iran. He has applied incredible pressure on Israel without demanding any reciprocity from the Arab side.
In 1948, the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon and CIA pressured then-Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion to avoid a declaration of independence. In 1950, the United States asked Israel to refrain from Jewish construction in Jerusalem and from declaring Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Ben-Gurion defied the United States and declared Jerusalem as the capital. In 1967, prime minister Levi Eshkol defied U.S. pressure and annexed east Jerusalem, thereby reuniting the city. In 1970, prime minister Golda Meir was urged to relinquish parts of Jerusalem and instead constructed neighbourhoods.
In 1961, president John F. Kennedy pressured Israel to stop the construction of Israel’s nuclear reactor. In 1967, president Lyndon Johnson urged Israel not to take a preemptive strike against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. In 1977, president Jimmy Carter pressed prime minister Menachem Begin to abstain from direct negotiations with president Anwar Sadat of Egypt. Israel ignored that directive, and a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was the result. In 1981, president Ronald Reagan warned Begin against bombing Iraq’s nuclear reactor. Again, Israel did what it thought best and crippled Iraq’s nuclear capability.
Notwithstanding the anti-Israeli pressure from U.S. presidents, the American Congress has always stood firm in supporting Israel, and this is mainly because the American public stands by a democratic and secure state of Israel. Proof of this is that in 1991, president George H.W. Bush denied Israel’s request for emergency assistance. Congress defied him and Israel received cash and military assistance. Israel can still count on a friendly Congress and, therefore, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should follow the precedent set by his predecessors and defy Obama. Israel will still continue to come out on top.
Bert Raphael
Thornhill, Ont.

I wish to bring to two matters to your attention:
1. The article on the United Church task force in Israel failed to mention the invaluable work of my colleagues at the Canada-Israel Committee in putting together the exceptional agenda (“United Church to reassess Mideast policies,” March 3).
2. In his letter to the editor, Rabbi Mendel Kaplan states that in my effort to seek “shalom bayit” between him and Kulanu, that he “has yet to hear anything from me” (“Article misses the real issues,” March 3). Indeed my records show that I sent him an e-mail suggesting we get together and chat on Feb. 24.
Bernie M. Farber
Chief Executive Officer
Canadian Jewish Congress

Thank you to Rabbi Chaim Strauchler for highlighting the difference between facile sloganeering and an earnest approach to community building (“Is freedom and tolerance really spoken here?” March 3). It seems that we have become so accustomed to the toxic society we live in that the concept of menschlich has no meaning. Perhaps it’s time to live up to our slogans.
Joe Kislowicz
Toronto

 
Rudy Brill died in Corunna, Ont., in 1996, at the age of 83. A member of the Royal Canada Legion in Corunna, Brill gave Yad Vashem testimony for his mother, Flora Kussy-Brill, in 1988. She was part of the Lustig-Guttman-Brill family, which perished in the Lodz Ghetto and in Auschwitz.
Search and Unite helps people who wonder whether a family member survived World War II. A branch of the organization is devoted to searching for Nazi-looted art in Austria and homes in the Czech Republic, and the owners of the art or their descendants. This is why we are searching for Brill’s family. We are most anxious to make contact with them or anyone who may have known him.
David Lewin
Search and Unite
156 Totteridge Lane
London N20 8JJ, England
Telephone: + 44 208 446 0404
www.remember.org/unite/lustig_brill.htm

Rabbis for Human Rights is not a human rights organization. They are an advocacy group that supports Palestinian issues and has shown no balance and no regard for the rights of Israelis or Jews.
I particularly found letter writer Leanore Lieblein’s condescending comment about the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League’s “vulnerability on the world stage” to be a nasty backhanded compliment, plainly meant to show that these organizations cannot normally be trusted (“Israeli human rights organizations,” Feb. 17).
Well, it is Rabbis for Human Rights itself that cannot be trusted. Israel is indeed “a beacon of democracy” and it’s RHR that “is on a witch hunt whose goal is the delegitimization” of that beacon.
Len Bennett
Montreal