Letters to the editor

Farley Weiss’ selective memory
In his guest column “Is the Jewish vote going Republican?” (May 31), Weiss relies on conclusions from specious polling and promotes the percentage of the Jewish vote as a bellwether for national trends despite being just 2.4% of the population. Has Mr. Weiss forgotten Donald Trump’s moral equivalence of torch-bearing neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville and those opposing them? After the terror attack by a white supremacist which killed an anti-racist demonstrator and injured others, Trump condemned this “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.” As for Trump’s numerous references to Jewish international banking interests (epitomized by George Soros), these are straight out of the late 19th- and early 20th-century fascist publications prevalent in Italy, Germany, France, England and the USA.

Lastly, he takes a swipe at Barack Obama, who he claims was irretrievably hostile to Israel while sending the most military aid to Israel of any U.S. president before or since.

Joe Biden? His unwavering support of Israel may well cost him the 2024 election. And his criticism of Bibi’s failures and withholding 2000-pound bunker busters hasn’t stopped the flow of munitions to date. As for “meticulous” IDF military operations in Gaza … eight months into this campaign and the hostages remain in Hamas tunnels, hundreds of IDF soldiers are dead, thousands have been seriously wounded while nothing has been resolved regarding the future of Gaza.

Richard Friedman
Pittsburgh

DNC talking points
Rep. Dan. Frankel’s commentary in the Chronicle is a hit piece on former President Trump (“Donald Trump is playing a dangerous game, and Jews lose either way,” May 31). Like other progressives, he is trying to project a false image of the former president.

Let me remind Mr. Frankel, and the rest of the progressives with Trump Derangement Syndrome, of Trump’s pro-Israel accomplishments. The U.S. embassy was moved to Jerusalem under Trump. Clinton, Bush and Obama failed to enact the law that placed it there. Only Clinton had one Arab state make a cold peace with Israel, while Trump had four. Iran was on the ropes under Trump; now, with Biden, it’s emboldened to wage war with Israel and make nuclear weapons. Trump cut aid to the Palestinian Authority because that money was being paid to families of terrorists. Under Obama, the U.S. failed to stop an anti-Israel U.N. resolution in late 2016. President Biden has continued the trend to placate anti-Israel voters in Michigan and Minnesota.

Let’s look at the Hamas sympathizing party — the one that includes Reps. Tlaib, Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and our own Summer Lee, among other “Squad” members. They all have been outspoken against Israel. It’s not the far-right who are protesting against Israel — it’s the progressive left and its Jew-hating funders. Antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed under Biden in the last three years.

Biden has always been on the wrong side of history, and now is no different. His idea of a two-state solution is Michigan and Minnesota. Even suggesting there be a two-state solution is giving a win to the terrorists. Biden has shown weakness in most situations and has only emboldened our enemies. Thus, the war in Gaza.

Mr. Frankel is projecting the current Democrat narrative on Trump — right out of the DNC and New York Times playbook. I do not see him criticizing his own party and the feckless occupant of the White House.

Andrew Neft
Upper St. Clair

Response to Rep. Frankel’s op-ed
In his op-ed “Donald Trump is playing a dangerous game, and Jews lose either way” (May 31), state Rep. Dan Frankel astoundingly warns against the dangers to the Jewish people of a victory by Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election. It is quite ironic that, while Rep. Frankel sounds this alarm, the Jewish people are suffering the worst outbreak of Jew-hatred in the United States and worldwide since the Holocaust. This vile antisemitism is not only occurring during the presidency of Joe Biden, but, in no small measure, can be attributed to his colossal failure of leadership, particularly his handling of the Gaza war.

When the war broke out Biden stood firmly with Israel: “In this moment of tragedy, I want to say to [Israel] and to the world and to terrorists everywhere that the United States stands with Israel. We will not ever fail to have their back … Israel has the right to defend itself and its people. Full stop … And my administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.”

That was President Biden, who has since undergone a quick and seamless transmogrification into lowly politician Biden.

It is that failure of Biden to adhere to his initial promise that has allowed and furthered this eruption of Jew-hatred. The president of the United States operates on a world stage and has a unique opportunity to promote and foster, with moral clarity, the fundamental principles of American democracy, including the ideas of equality and rule of law. But Biden was not up to the task. When Jew-haters, including some members of Congress, denied the atrocities that Hamas committed, the president should have denounced them with a fervor, but he didn’t. When leftist mainstream media regularly jumped with glee to promote the lies that Hamas perpetuated and to distort the reality of the war, he should have denounced them with a passion, but he didn’t. When all of the hate-filled campus demonstrations, called out, “From the River to the Sea” and threatened Jewish students, he should have denounced them with a vehemence, but he didn’t. When the United Nations, the ICJ, the ICC and other international institutions shamelessly smeared Israel, he should have denounced them with zeal, but he didn’t.

Why should he have denounced them? Because they failed miserably, and continue to fail miserably, to uphold the cherished principles upon which each of these institutions — academia, media, international — were founded.

Why didn’t he denounce them? It was not only because of an upcoming election. It was because his administration and much of his political support is filled with woke progressives who are driven by ideology and by emotion, not by rational analysis, and who suffer from severe weakness caused by profound moral confusion. This failure is a result of an insidious, creeping, neo-Marxist encroachment into our cherished institutions, where rule of law no longer matters.

This is a much greater danger to Jews, America, and Western civilization than a possible four more years of Donald Trump.

Reuven Hoch
Pittsburgh