Eat Your Academic Words

In your July 11 article on the Jewish farmers of Gush Katif ("Roots in the Sand"), agricultural economist Prof. Yakir Plessner is quoted as saying, "There's nothing particularly vital about any agriculture," noting that agriculture made up just 2.5 percent of Israel's GDP in 2003. I would like to remind Prof. Plessner that the human heart or brain makes up less than 2.5 percent of the body, and that the soul has no measurable weight at all. Yet despite their fractional material insignificance, they constitute the essence of our being.

This is also true of agriculture as a fundamental pillar of the economic structure, and heart and soul of any society. While it's true that a computer chip, a polished diamond or an hour of a lawyer's time commands a higher market price these days than a basket of vegetables, the white-collar boys and high techies depend on the output of farmers to be able to engage in any economic activity whatsoever. Moreover, the presence of agriculture and its marvels of creation consistently remind our Western urbanized children of the link between humanity and the divine giver of life. When the chips are really down, as in the ghettos of Nazi Europe, a sack of wheat or a bunch of carrots always trumps a non-edible heirloom.

The fact that agricultural products are cheap, readily available, and produced by a relative few members of the workforce is a credit to the innovations of the last
two centuries, during the latter half of which farmers of the Zionist Yishuv and modern State of Israel have been global leaders and trend-setters. Academics in ivory
towers should not cavalierly dismiss them in order to downplay the farmers of Gaza unless, of course, they plan on skipping lunch.

John H. Rauch
Beverly Hills, California


Money Games

Kenneth Ross of Jerusalem bemoans the expenditure of public funds on the Maccabiah (Letters, August 8). My son represented Great Britain in the under-18 football competition at the Maccabiah. My wife and I came to watch him as did nearly every other family who had sons playing on that of his trip plus our costs was about £7,000. Multiply this by 15 for the other families and you will see from just this one squad alone how much foreign revenue Israel must have gained as a result of the Maccabiah.

We were in Israel at the same time last year to visit our eldest son who was in the army and, besides the French, there were very few tourists from other countries, and the hotels were almost empty. This year there were tourists from all over the world and for the first time in many years the hotels were full.

Most of the British supporters had not been to Israel for many years as a result of the troubles but the wonderful experience we enjoyed this year not only ensures that we will be back, but also that the rave reviews we and the other Maccabiah visitors give to our friends at home will help ensure that Israel will once again become a popular destination for British Jews. It won't be long before Israel profits financially from the small investment it made in the Games.

Stewart Dymant
London


How He Was

As I write this letter, which comes from my heart, I have memories of Benjamin Netanyahu when as ambassador to the United Nations, he would speak in forceful ways that reminded me, a young Venezuelan from the Diaspora, of a heroic and ethical past. He was one of the young Israelis who made me feel proud to be Jewish, because of the way he talked, because of the content of his speech, because of his brother Jonathan (who was killed in the Entebbe operation), because I could look up to them and feel safe. Those were role models of leadership, of trust. What ever happened to him? How did he drift down into becoming a South American-leader look-alike? Opportunistic, self-centered, with the eye of a hawk to see opportunities for self-benefit, regardless of the cost it has for the people he claims to serve and guide; aiming at sharpening their divisions, showing he has no sense of leadership and of history.

Netanyahu lives only his own present, oblivious of the trail of destruction he will leave behind. His resignation as finance minister at this moment in time is a sample of pure blatant falsehood in disguise. Regardless of what our political inclinations are, we cannot trust a man who systematically feeds on divisions and allow him to partake in the writing of the history of Israel and of the Jewish people. We will regret it. Take a look at what is going on in Latin America, home to fake and unethical leaders like him.

Judith Merenfeld de Moscu
Caracas


The Bush Docrtrine

In an otherwise excellent review of a new book about J. Robert Oppenheimer ("A Complicated Mind," Aug. 8), Martin Land inserts some extraneous, false and misguided cant about President Bush.

First, far from "ignoring criticism," Bush vigorously and successfully defended his policies in the 2004 campaign. Second, the Bush Doctrine is fundamentally no different from the Eshkol-Dayan-Rabin Doctrine of 1967, or the Begin Doctrine of 1981 (against the Iraqi Osirak reactor), i.e., hit your enemies before they hit you. Israel paid a heavy price for the failure to hit 'em first in 1973. Has Land forgotten 9/11? Third, Land's disparaging remarks about "renewed development of nuclear weapons" presumably refers to American bunker-buster bombs. I for one pray that these bombs will deter or destroy Iranian nuclear weapons before they can be used against Israel and America. I also hope that Land will reflect and realize that this is not a "scramble for power" but a scramble for survival.

Oppenheimer's postwar arms-control positions vis-a-vis the war-ruined but rational Soviet Union would be folly against the resurgent and irrational ideologies of Iranian-Islamic fascism and triumphalism.

Arthur C. Segal
Springville, Alabama


Legal Dissent

In "Democracy under Fire" (Cover, Aug. 22), you imply that the anti-disengagement demonstration at Kfar Maimon was illegal when, in fact, it was legal. It was the planned march to the Gaza Strip from Kfar Maimon that was unapproved and illegal, and it was not done.

The police's stopping of buses and confiscating of licenses near Kiryat Shmonah and other places far away from the planned demonstration was a violation of citizens' rights. Such an action was never contemplated in the United States when citizens planned to converge on Washington, D.C. for massive demonstrations.

We keep reading how public opinion polls agree with disengagement and thus reflect the majority. Polls have been used by many, including dictators, to justify actions. In Israel, the two polls that were meaningful were the elections and a referendum. In the general elections the anti-disengagement policy won by a large majority, and in the Likud referendum the majority were against disengagement. The prime minister initiated this referendum in his own party and promised to honor it, but when the results were counted and his policy was defeated, he refused to keep his promise to change his policy to agree with the majority.

Aharon Goldberg
Hatzor Haglilit


A Lost Cause

Avi Katz's illustration of General Custer wearing an orange shirt emblazoned with the words "Gush Katif, Forever" is a perfect complement to Hirsh Goodman's essay on the Gaza disengagement ("Beware, My Brother," August 8).

Gaza was a lost cause and a dead end. The same applies to smaller settlements in Judea and Samaria, where Jews are in a minority among much larger populations of Palestinians. Will there ever be Jewish majorities in these areas? No, there will not. For Israel to waste precious shekels and put soldiers in harm's way in a lost cause is self-defeating. Such settlement blocs as Gush Etzion and Ma'aleh Adumim are already suburbs of Jerusalem and should be incorporated into Israel proper. But if Israel holds on to all the land legitimately captured in 1967, in a generation there will no longer be a Jewish majority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. That, not ideology or theology, is the reality.

Eli Kavon
Sunrise, Florida


Gaza Sights

Hirsh Goodman implies that Gaza has no historical significance for Israel. He is apparently unaware of the Jewish presence in Gaza dating back to the Hashmonaim, Yonatan and Shimon, who seized it in 145 BCE. He ignores the hundreds of Jews who lived there during the Mishnaic period, and the famous kabbalist Yisrael Ben Moshe of Najara, the 16th-century rabbi of Gaza and the composer of the Shabbat song "Yah Ribbon." If Mr. Goodman visits Gaza, in addition to "some sand dunes," he will find a mosaic in the remains of a shul dating back to 508. Until this month, he would also have found 3 high schools, 7 elementary schools, 36 kindergartens, and 42 day-care centers, and have heard the voices of 5,000 schoolchildren. He would have seen 38 shuls, 166 Israeli farmers, plus some 5,000 of their Palestinian workers, and the 48 graves in the Gush Katif cemetery, including those of six residents murdered by the terrorists slated to take control.
Chesky Wertman
Cedarhurst, New York


The Agency and Europe

It is with great satisfaction that I learned from the Back Page interview with Zeev Bielski, the new head of the Jewish Agency (July 25), that the Agency realizes and recognizes that all Jews will not make aliyah, and is therefore launching various educational programs in order to strengthen the Jewish communities in the Diaspora.

However, I am struck by the continuous focus from Israel toward the United States. The whole interview with Zeev Bielski - questions and answers - was North American-oriented. When will you recognize European Jewry, our needs and our achievements, on other issues than anti-Semitism and assimilation?

Lena Posner-Korosi
Stockholm

The Jerusalem Report, September 5, 2005 issue