The precision with which the Israel Defence Forces continue to surgically pinpoint their retaliatory defensive rocket attacks on their Arab terrorist enemies can surely be likened to King David’s lethal slingshot 3,000 years ago, taking out the massive Philistine army’s nine-foot-giant, Goliath, who criticized, threatened and insulted the Jews – with 40 days of taunts – as it is said. Sound familiar? It should. The conflict between Israel and Hamas is biblical history repeating itself for the umpteenth time, and extending itself into the 21st century. It will never stop completely, but each intermittent finale will always end the same way – ad infinitum. As Albert Einstein said, so succinctly, and, in this case, prophetically: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Tragic, isn’t it?
Victor Redlick
Toronto
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East End Madrassah
On June 5, The CJN published a letter by Muntazir Jaffer, director of operations of the Islamic Shia Ithna Asheri Jamaat (ISIJ) of Toronto, otherwise known as the Jaffari Centre. Jaffer accused me and another community leader of making “baseless and inflammatory remarks.” He provided several examples of his community’s “promotion of Canadian values.”
I awaited the police investigation report before issuing a response to The CJN letter. Following a six-month investigation, the York Region Police conclusively found that the above-mentioned institutions were in fact teaching antisemitism to children at the elementary school level. (“Police refuse to lay charges against madrassah,” Nov. 15). While not criminally charging them, the report held the imam and the school principal of Toronto’s East End Madrassah responsible for the hate content in the curriculum.
The police investigation validated our initial findings that the curriculum at the Madrassah spoke of “Jewish plots and treacheries” and contextualized Nazism in a poor comparison to the Jewish People. It is unfortunate that leaders of both the Jaffari Centre and ISIJ believe this report fully exonerates them and the Madrassah; it seems they either do not understand the true significance of the report, or are wilfully ignorant of the concerns raised about the school teaching children to hate Jews for years.
Avi Benlolo, President and CEO
Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies
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Aaron Apple’s Spin-o-thon
Aaron Apple’s second annual Spin-o-thon fundraising event was a bold effort to raise money for children who need medication not covered by OHIP (“Charity aids chronically ill kids,” Oct. 18). Aaron Maresky, 11, was diagnosed with severe Crohn’s disease when he was seven years old and lives with intense pain every day. It is beyond me why OHIP does not fund these medications. Crohn’s disease is utter torture to those suffering from it. Aaron knows the extent to which chronically ill kids and their families suffer across the city. I’m a 15-year-old boy who strongly supports Aaron’s charity because he suffers and knows at such a young age that families will benefit once people raise money and join him in the cause.
Shmuel Beckerman
Thornhill, Ont.
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IDF likened to King David
The precision with which the Israel Defence Forces continue to surgically pinpoint their retaliatory defensive rocket attacks on their Arab terrorist enemies can surely be likened to King David’s lethal slingshot 3,000 years ago, taking out the massive Philistine army’s nine-foot-giant, Goliath, who criticized, threatened and insulted the Jews – with 40 days of taunts – as it is said. Sound familiar? It should. The conflict between Israel and Hamas is biblical history repeating itself for the umpteenth time, and extending itself into the 21st century. It will never stop completely, but each intermittent finale will always end the same way – ad infinitum. As Albert Einstein said, so succinctly, and, in this case, prophetically: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Tragic, isn’t it?
Victor Redlick
Toronto
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Iranians possess ‘sanity’
It’s most unfortunate that reporter Janice Arnold doesn’t mention the implicit assumption that dominates the mainstream discourse on Iran: Iran is hopelessly irrational and poses a dire threat to world stability in the article “Netanyahu doesn’t trust Obama on Iran: expert” (Oct. 25).
Yet not only hasn’t Iran launched an aggressive war of conquest for at least 150 years, and Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor has acknowledged that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said that Iran seeks to “wipe Israel off the face of the map,” but even Reuel Marc Gerecht, the leading neoconservative authority on Iran and a former CIA expert on the Middle East, has written that “Iranians possess the essential factor to make deterrence work: sanity.”
It should not be hard to understand that the conflict the United States and Israel has with Iran is rooted in geopolitics, not ideology. Iran wants regional influence, and the United States and Israel want to maintain their dominance, which requires frustrating Iran’s goal. Even Eliezer Tsafrir, the former head of Israeli intelligence in Iran and Iraq, has recognized this reality by stating: “However ideological and Islamic, everything Iran was doing was nationalistic, and even similar to the Shah”.
Jeffrey Rudolph
Montreal