To the Editor:
Re “In Israel, ‘the Darkness Is In all places,’” by Megan Ok. Stack (Opinion visitor essay, Could 18):
I respect Ms. Stack’s essay, by which she makes a number of necessary observations about present attitudes amongst Israelis. Nonetheless, she leaves out the tragic decisions that Palestinians have themselves made in Gaza and the West Financial institution.
Specifically, after the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, Gazans had the chance to make use of large quantities of worldwide assist to construct new residential communities and seaside industrial and vacationer locations.
As an alternative, they diverted primarily all funding into battle preparations, together with the rocket and tunnel expertise that has proved so formidable in a number of wars with Israel since then. The extremism of attitudes on this battle isn’t restricted to 1 aspect.
Stephen Corridor
San Francisco
To the Editor:
I’m grateful to The New York Instances for publishing Megan Ok. Stack’s essay. We’d like extra articles on what it’s actually like on the bottom in Israel, and, as disheartening as it could be, we’re all higher and extra knowledgeable for studying it.
Solely when Jews in america (I’m one in every of them) get hold of a better understanding of the horrible plight of the Palestinian individuals and what they’ve been subjected to over a long time will we have the ability to have an effect on our authorities’s insurance policies to supply a extra hopeful final result for the area.
Till then, this vicious cycle will proceed, as a result of, as Ms. Stack so eloquently described, “there is no such thing as a wall thick sufficient to suppress eternally a individuals who don’t have anything to lose.”
Roy Friedland
Greensboro, N.C.
To the Editor:
I’m dismayed at Megan Ok. Stack’s one-sided evaluation of Israeli coverage towards the Palestinians. I’m a lifelong supporter of Israel, however I share Ms. Stack’s concern relating to Israel’s excessive right-wing authorities. Inserting all, and even most, of the accountability on the foot of Israeli Jews, nonetheless, is disingenuous.
Contemplate a counterfactual historical past by which Arab and Palestinian leaders had mentioned “sure” to any of the alternatives to stay subsequent to Jewish neighbors in peace. A easy Arab “sure” may need resulted in two separate states, for 2 separate indigenous peoples, residing aspect by aspect.
There may need been no rise of Hamas and Hezbollah, suicide bombings or defensive boundaries. Each events may have lived in peace, dignity and prosperity.
Maybe the subsequent time an olive department is obtainable, if there’s a subsequent time, the Palestinians will reply “sure.” What have they got to lose?
Stephen E. Inexperienced
San Jose, Calif.
Trump, Oil and Massive Cash in Politics
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Solicits Billion {Dollars} at Oil Dinner” (entrance web page, Could 10):
It’s a clarion name to get massive cash out of politics.
You report that Donald Trump “advised a gaggle of oil executives and lobbyists gathered at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort final month that they need to donate $1 billion to his presidential marketing campaign as a result of, if elected, he would roll again environmental guidelines that he mentioned hampered their trade.”
Fossil gasoline pursuits already pour tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} into political campaigns, largely to Republicans, pushing that occasion’s congressional delegation and presidential nominee to oppose motion towards local weather change.
This push for contributions and earnings is within the face of the digital unanimity of local weather scientists that burning fossil fuels is the principle trigger of world warming.
Massive contributions from gun, pharmaceutical, insurance coverage, monetary and different rich pursuits additionally powerfully affect our system of their favor, often to the drawback of atypical individuals. When one or a number of massive donors should purchase extra political speech than tens of hundreds of thousands of atypical individuals mixed, the system is rigged in favor of those that have already got essentially the most.
Public funding of election campaigns has labored effectively on the state, county and metropolis ranges. It elevates advantage and the general public curiosity in authorities decision-making and builds confidence in our system.
Richard Barsanti
Western Springs, Sick.
‘Journey’ as Metaphor
To the Editor:
Re “When Did All the things Flip Right into a ‘Journey’?” (entrance web page, Could 16):
Identify the journey — infertility, breast most cancers, weight reduction, motherhood or a cathartic trip — and I’ve been on it.
“Journey” has turn into a euphemism for wrestle, usually a protracted, winding street with ups and downs. Some individuals could attain the end line and have fun triumphantly. Others could by no means get there, leaving family members to marvel how their “select your personal journey” may have adopted a distinct chapter. No journey is ever actually full.
Infertility could also be behind me, however its wake — a stillborn son, a ruptured uterus, a C-section scar, new relations in our surrogates who carried our daughters — will reverberate for my lifetime.
Many people will face infertility for the primary time immediately, tomorrow or sometime sooner or later. I at all times make time for individuals who attain out to me, hoping my expertise might help them — or, on the very least, give them an opportunity to speak to somebody on the metaphorical “different aspect.”
Journeys can break us or make us into somebody new. No matter euphemism we use, the necessary factor is don’t make it your ending whenever you get to the opposite aspect. Make it a brand new starting to assist those that comply with in your footsteps.
Lia Buffa De Feo
New York
To the Editor:
With respect to most cancers, its sufferers and their households — and all these dismayed by what linguists name “semantic drift” — let’s comply with name most cancers a “state of affairs.” Not a sentimental, self-help journey. Not a grim or rousing battle. Undoubtedly one thing fraught and critical: a state of affairs that compels utmost consideration and motion over time, time that makes no guarantees.
Karin Halvorson Hillhouse
Washington
Offering Assist for the Homeless and the Mentally Sick
To the Editor:
Re “Citing Security, New York Strikes Mentally Sick Individuals From the Subway” (information article, Could 11):
As New Yorkers every day enter our transit system, the sight of women and men sleeping on station benches or in subway automobiles causes blended feelings starting from dismay to concern to disgust. The mantra from the riders, both mumbled or spoken aloud, often goes: “Why can’t the mayor clear this up?”
And it’s a mantra that has, for many years now, moved mayors, below the guise of compassion, to take aggressive motion to take away from the subways those that are poor, as a rule homeless, and desperately scuffling with psychological well being points.
In fact, the cynics in us perceive the politics of the second and the necessity for mayors to indicate power and resolve, even when their actions present solely a short-term repair.
Sure, these are tough and seemingly intractable issues. However we’re by no means going to search out lasting options until we start to grasp and deal with the basis points.
As a begin, we have to perceive how these of us had been allowed to fall deeper and deeper into the cracks. How community-based well being and psychological well being programs — usually nonexistent or, at greatest, bare-bones in poor communities — had been unable to supply any actual, significant help earlier than they turned so misplaced to us.
Most instantly, although, the town ought to interact with high-quality psychological well being groups to inundate the subway system, providing greater than only a keep in a dilapidated shelter or an involuntary dedication to a psychiatric facility. And it ought to examine the work of different cities, which have used packages akin to Housing First to assist deal with the psychological well being problems with these residing on the streets by offering everlasting housing.
Arnold S. Cohen
New York
The author is an adjunct professor at Fordham Legislation Faculty and former president of Partnership for the Homeless.
