Re: Israel's building of wall stirs ghetto comparison, June 22.
Susan Taylor Martin's article on British lawmaker Oona King provided a forum for King's perspective on Israel's building of a dividing wall. King condemns the wall-building and likens the wall to those of the Warsaw Ghetto. While King has a right to express her view, an alternative perspective also deserves to be heard.
The walls of the Warsaw Ghetto were erected to block Polish Jews from free travel and commerce throughout their own city of Warsaw. They were not erected to keep Jews from terrorizing other Polish citizens, from bombing the cafes of Warsaw or the buses of the city. They were not erected as a defense for civilians from ruthless Jewish murderers.
Israel's wall, on the contrary, is a last resort action to protect its citizens from terrorists. The wall will not block Palestinians from free travel and commerce throughout their own cities, but will simply keep armed Palestinian terrorists from easily entering a neighboring country to commit mass murder.
To overlook these distinctions is to mislead the public.
-- Jeremy S. Gaies, Tampa
Nations have a right to protect borders
Re: Israel's building of wall stirs ghetto comparison.
Susan Taylor Martin's comparison of Israel's defense of its borders from terrorists to the building of the Warsaw Ghetto is both false and odious. Every nation has the right to protect its borders from illegal entrants, particularly when they are bent on violence against its citizens. The U.S. government is taking steps daily to protect our borders for the same reason. That is an inherent right of sovereignty. The Israeli government has every right to exercise that right - to protect its citizens from terrorists and murderers.
The Warsaw Ghetto was built to confine and dehumanize certain citizens of Poland, deprive them of all rights of citizenship and ultimately send them to death camps. Israel claims no sovereignty over Gaza and does not exercise any administrative authority in Gaza. If there is any "torture and bureaucracy" in Gaza, it comes from the Arab authorities who administer it. The only "seizing of land" or property has been the isolated destruction of the homes of terrorists who resist arrest. Residents of Gaza are free to conduct their lives as their own governing authorities permit; they are not free to enter Israel without careful screening to protect Israeli lives.
It is no answer to say that Martin is simply reporting the views of some British politician; that could be done in a paragraph. The detail in which she presents this story and the extended coverage provided on Page 2 of the A section indicate that both Taylor and the Times are fully sympathetic to this vile analogy. Shame on both of you.
-- Claire Stiglitz, Dunedin
The real irony of these walls
Re: Israel's building of wall stirs ghetto comparison.
It was indeed shocking to read Susan Taylor Martin's attempt to draw parallels and moral equivalence between Israel's desperate attempts to separate itself from those who relentlessly and without compromise continue to seek its destruction, and the imprisonment of the very same people within the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.
The more appropriate irony that should have suggested itself to Martin is that the same Jews who were imprisoned behind ghetto walls so that they could be more efficiently exterminated, now have to build a wall in an attempt to stay alive. Israelis, under daily terrorist attack, seek ways to send their children onto the school bus without fear of having them return home in several pieces. But its uncompromising terrorist enemies will seek no peace, extend no olive branch, and would stop only if Israel and its people were destroyed.
I waited for Martin to invoke the obligatory Jew to criticize the Israeli wall, since this works so well to lend credence to her charge. This has been a time-honored technique favored by terrorist apologists and others with an anti-Israeli, or for that matter, an anti-Jewish bent. Martin does not disappoint.
I wonder if the wall would be built if Hamas and Islamic Jihad agreed to peaceful co-existence with the Israelis and stopped terrorist attacks. I wonder if the Warsaw Ghetto wall would still have been built if the millions of Jews slaughtered by the Nazis had only extended an olive branch to Hitler and vowed not to terrorize the German people.
-- Sheldon Scheinert, Largo
A malicious distortion
Re: Israel's building of wall stirs ghetto comparison.
As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I take issue with the malicious distortion of history by Susan Taylor Martin in comparing conditions endured by Palestinians to those endured by the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto under Nazi occupation.
Her article completely distorts historical facts and context. The Nazis confined Jews to the Warsaw Ghetto before shipping them to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. The Israelis are building a security fence as a way of defending its citizens from Palestinians who wish to destroy it.
Martin has every right to disagree with Israeli actions and policies, but it is journalistically dishonest to compare the right of a government to protect its citizens to the most evil and massive crime in modern history, the Holocaust.
-- Sandy Mermelstein, Pinellas Park
A humane solution
Re: Israel's building of wall stirs ghetto comparison.
The years of internecine warfare between Jews and Palestinians have killed thousands and really appears to have no present solution despite the U.S. efforts to mediate. The present confrontation will go on for years more because of Arab funding of Hamas and that group's intractable determination to obliterate Israel.
The Warsaw Ghetto imprisoned peoples awaiting German execution. The Berlin Wall imprisoned a population against their will. The Great Wall of China protected the Chinese population from marauding Mongols. The United States puts barbed wire on some sections of its Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants and patrols the border's balance.
Consider the newly erected Israeli fence to be a humane solution to a continuing bloody confrontation. Quite possibly it will protect Israelis, defang Hamas and allow Gaza and the West Bank to go about their own development and future business apart from Israel. Arab nations might even be shamed into providing money and food to the Palestinians who, to date, seem almost totally dependent upon U.N. welfare for their continued existence.
-- John Christy Clement, Tierra Verde
Nudist camp critic is off base
Re: Nude youth camps cause stir, June 19.
Rep. Mark Foley is way off base regarding the summer camp for nudist children (at Lake Como earlier this month).
"I don't know if anything illegal is going on," is not an acceptable premise for condemning something that has gone on for many years without incident. On Good Morning America, Mr. Foley stated he would be "far more comfortable with children attending Boy Scout/Girl Scout camps." That is not Foley's decision to make. That is a decision responsible parents can and should make based on personal choice and beliefs and without legislative interference.
The fact that pedophilia is far more documentable outside of nudist environments, family/friends, etc., and is highly visible in the religious mainstream (e.g., the Catholic Church), does not bring about initiatives to ban religion. In fact nudist clubs that are members of the American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR), do an admirable job of throwing out people who cause any trouble. AANR is diligent in maintaining a "Do Not Admit" list of people who cause problems within their club structure. Nudists police their environments extremely closely because of the erroneous beliefs of people like like Rep. Foley.
I am retired and live at Lake Como. I was around during many of the pool activities during the week-long camp. There were nearly as many chaperones as there were participants, and the kids were well behaved and had a great time. These children are largely the offspring of long-time nudists and have been brought up to respect themselves and others, and are far better educated in the physiology of the human body, thus they are also far less likely to become teen parents than those outside the nudist community because the mystique and mystery are removed.
For a Christian-based country the United States has far more rape, teen pregnancy and sexual harassment crimes than any society in the world. Nudism is prevalent and accepted in European countries and they have far fewer problems than the United States. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned in how they educate and interact with their children.
It has been written the past few days that the typical nudist participant is educated, conservative and Republican. I, and many here, fit that description. As a Republican, I am in favor of state and individual rights - less government interfering in my personal decisions and those of others. Hopefully that "Republican trait" will prevail in the coming days.
As for Rep. Foley, he has nudist resorts in his district. He should educate himself at one of them before making asinine assertions.
-- Mark Ashworth, Lutz
A case of political exploitation
Re: Nude youth camps cause stir.
The mini-flap over 25 nudist children at a summer camp is a good example of what is wrong with politics and politicians in 2003.
Rep. Mark Foley has done fine work on behalf of exploited children, especially in regard to the AMBER network. He is a sincere, dedicated individual who has made, and continues to make, a difference in the lives of untold numbers of kids. However, he is a politician, and his political instincts may be coming into play on this topic.
Nudism and sex are two different things, a reality that can be seen many places in the world besides the clothing-free clubs and beaches in the United States. There is little that is erotic about the naked human form that is not actually in the eye of the beholder. (Believe me; I have seen myself nude. It's not a pretty picture.)
There are people who find naked children arousing - the story described one of them as a COG (creepy old guy) - but that has nothing to do with kids taking part in a nudist summer camp. These particular kids were/are not being exploited in any way. Judging from my own kid's reactions to regular camps (i.e. those with clothes) if the kids didn't want to be there, they wouldn't be there.
Making this a local and national issue, and a cause of controversy, on the other hand, is much more clearly a case of exploitation, both to advance a political career, and to sell papers. Why the New York Times would find something like this worthy of coverage is a mystery.
It is a shame that a man like Rep. Foley would allow himself to get caught up in something like this. Getting a reputation as the guy who wants to shut down nude summer camps will seriously handicap Rep. Foley's future efforts to protect children who really need protection, all for the sake of a few headlines and maybe an invitation to be interviewed on FOX News. It ain't worth it, Mark.
-- Michael P. Higgins, Clearwater
Harry performs reading magic
J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series deserves the educational award of the year by promoting one of the "three R's" so successfully.
-- Tom Dabney, St. Petersburg
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