Letters to the editor
Readers respond
Only one fact mattered in presidential election
The opinions of several Jewish Pittsburghers appear in the Nov. 15 article “Jewish Pittsburghers react to 2024 general election.” A thousand pro-Trump and anti-Trump arguments can be made, but only one fact really matters: On Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald Trump tried to overthrow the government of the United States. It’s impossible to see his actions that day any other way. Unfortunately over 70 million Americans don’t agree with me. What damage he will do to our democracy over the next four years is frightening to contemplate.
Mitchell Nyer
Pittsburgh
Jews better off in democracies than under authoritarianism
Professor Rona Kaufman is quoted in the Nov. 15 Chronicle concerning her disillusionment with the Democratic Party and her decision to vote for Trump in the 2024 election (“Jewish Pittsburghers react to 2024 general election”). I appreciate her concerns about the Democratic Party and the positions of some factions of the party as well as the reprehensible antisemitism on many university campuses. But to vote for Trump because she believes that his victory “is better for Jews and America” is absurd. For most of the 20th century Jews have been far better off in democracies rather than in states with authoritarian leadership. I believe it better to live in a democracy where there exists the possibility of fighting intolerance and antisemitism and promoting change rather than living under authoritarian control.
Joel A. Tarr, professor emeritus
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh
Huckabee’s quote incomplete
A Nov. 18 article in the Chronicle quoted the ambassador-designate to Israel, Gov. Mike Huckabee, as having once remarked, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian” (“Trump taps Mike Huckabee, evangelical favorite, to be ambassador to Israel”).
That’s a partial quote. Huckabee’s full statement was: “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian. You have Arabs and Persians, and there’s such complexity in that. But there’s really no such thing [as Palestinian national identity]. That’s been a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.” Gov. Huckabee also once remarked: “The idea that they have a long history, dating back hundreds or thousands of years, is not true.”
One of Israel’s most famous and beloved prime ministers, Golda Meir, said the same thing, repeatedly. For example, she told the BBC in 1970: “What difference is there between Arabs who were on this side of the Jordan and the other side of the Jordan?…They are the majority in Jordan, they are in parliament, they are in government. What has happened since then — why have they become more Palestinian-conscious since the war of ’67?”
The answer to the prime minister’s question — why did Palestinian Arab identity suddenly emerge after 1967?—was answered succinctly by Gov. Huckabee: It was invented to serve as “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”
Moshe Phillips
National chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel
New York, New York
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