Matters Of Fact

Dear Editor: Regarding "With shaky cease-fire, Arab leaders look to Gaza’s future" (Boston Globe, March 4, 2025), everyone needs to realize that no plan for Gaza's future will succeed and any investment in rebuilding Gaza will be totally wasted unless Hamas is first eliminated. Sincerely, Alan Stein Submitted to the Boston Globe, March 4, 2025

Sent to the Boston Globe January 29, 2025: Dear Editor: Reading the article "For Palestinians returning north, elation and despair" (Wednesday, January 29, 2025), I can't help but think of an important lesson it contains. When you choose a government made up of barbaric genocidal terrorist thugs and that government turns most of the homes, schools, hospitals, mosques and UNRWA facilities into armories, including tens of thousands of rockets, builds an extensive network of subterranean terror tunnels underneath civilian structures and with entrances into many of them, turns the civilians into human shields, repeatedly launches rockets and other terror attacks against a peaceful, democratic, sovereign neighbor and then launches a barbaric attack, beheading babies and burning them in ovens, gang raping innocent young women before murdering them and then bringing their dead, half-naked bodies back as hostages and parading them before cheering crowds, that sovereign neighbor t...

 Dear Editor: In her pillorying of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, most recently in her article "A disservice to the Jewish people," she blames him for what she calls "inexcusable" Israeli behavior. She's wrong about her "facts" and unjustified in her opinions. She refers to "10 months of Israeli bombardment that's killed over 39,000 people." It's been more than two months since the United Nations - no friend of Israel - recognized that Hamas had grossly inflated the number of deaths of women and children, yet Rutgers continues to use Hamas' totally unreliable figures. She also ignores the fact that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths, at roughly 1 to 1 and possibly significantly lower, barely 1/9 of the wartime norm of nearly 9 to 1 expected by the United Nations itself. She ignores the fact that, until Benny Gantz recently left Israel's war cabinet, it was that war cabinet, not Netanyahu, that determined Isr...

To the editor: I am distressed by what was revealed by Bernie Sanders' op-ed, "No more US complicity with Netanyahu's war machine in Gaza." It revealed that a long-time United States Senator could be incredibly ignorant. Putting aside the fact that Israel currently has but one brigade in Gaza, which hardly comprises a "war machine," it's not Netanyahu's war and it's not against the Palestinian Arab people. The Israeli army has been doing what a united Israeli public demands, knowing that not succeeding in what President Biden himself acknowledged must be done - destroying Hamas - would be a disaster for Israel. An not just for Israel. If Israel doesn't succeed in destroying Hamas, it will be a disaster for America and for the entire democratic world, a disaster which might be impossible to overcome. Israel is fighting a just and necessary war against evil and, contrary to the misinformation spread by Sanders, it is fighting it in a highly mor...

To the editor: It's just over six months since Hamas, along with other terror groups and thousands of ordinary Gaza civilians, perpetrated the worst slaughter of Jews since the Shoah. Polls in November showed 98% of the Arabs in the Palestinian Authority and Gaza felt more proud of their Palestinian identity thanks to that atrocity. Israel had no alternative but to defend its citizens to prevent Hamas from carrying out its promise to repeat that slaughter "again and again." Despite the vile nature of its enemy, Israel has done more than any other army in history to prevent unnecessary harm to the civilians in Gaza, few of whom are actually innocent. My first thought, reading the headline "I'm Jewish, and I've covered wars. I know war crimes when I see them" of Peter Maass' April 9 commentary was that it's pretty clear he's hallucinating. This was confirmed "again and again" by the content of his misguided article, but he really went...

To the editor: In the April 4 article "Keeping heat on Biden over Gaza," Senator Elizabeth Warren is quoted as saying "This is not about politics. This is about doing what's right." Unfortunately, she has things backwards. That's how it should be, but lately it's been all about politics and not about doing what's right. President Biden has to stop trying to get the votes of the pathological Israel-haters. He needs to stop looking for excuses to criticize Israel. He needs to help put an end to the tragedy in Gaza by standing solidly with Israel as it works to effectively eliminate Hamas and the other terror groups which have been busy strengthening themselves, repressing the people and continually attacking Israelis ever since Israel completely left Gaza in 2005. Instead of relentlessly criticizing Israel, he should be recognizing our democratic friend has done more than any other country in history to minimize civilian casualties and its efforts have...

Dear Newsweek: Angela McArdle is correct that "War is more offensive than protesters" (April 18, 2024), but is wrong about just about everything else she writes. As is typical of apologists for Palestinian Arabs, she repeatedly falsely accuses Israel of doing what the Palestinian Arabs are attempting,  including genocide, which is explicitly called for in the Hamas charter. I might also point out that Israel's "violent origin story" began millennia before the United States came on the scene. She might try attending a Passover seder this week and learning Israel's origin story. She closes with another rare accurate observation: "The fog of war tends to obscure everything around an issue, including the history of these conflicts." I suspect the fog of war has nothing to do with her profound lack of understanding of the conflict the Arabs in the Land of Israel started long before they adopted the identity of Palestinian. Sincerely, Alan Stein

 The March 17 episode of "Up First" was truly heart-wrenching, all the more because it was made so personal. There is one obvious question: why did you not similarly personalize the story of any of the people who are actually suffering the most in Gaza, far more than either Shema Ahmed or Wafa Abouzadeh and Aboud Okal? One answer is obvious: Nobody other than Gaza terrorists has any access to them; indeed, for those who are not known to have been murdered yet, nobody other than those terrorists know whether they're still even alive. Yet no mention was even made of the suffering of the hostages, all of whom are suffering from inhumane treatment and far worse conditions than those you so sympathetically portrayed. There is also have another trait they have that those you highlighted almost certainly don't share: they are all innocent. Given that 98% of the Arabs polled in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority after the October 7 Massacre said they were more proud of being ...

This was sent to the MetroWest Daily News February 4 and published February 18.  To the editor: Clearly, the blame for the current situation in Gaza lies primarily with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad Fatah, the other terror groups and thousands of ordinary Gazans who perpetrated the barbaric October 7 pogrom, along with their sponsors in Iran and Qatar. However, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutteres was correct when he said that horrendous slaughter did not occur "in a vacuum," even if he was totally wrong about the context. After each previous Gaza war started by Hamas, premature ceasefires were implemented thanks to pressure from shortsighted individuals and governments, who then insisted on transferring massive amounts of assistance to Gaza, most of which was taken by Hamas and used to rearm, strengthen itself, build rockets, rocket launchers, terror tunnels and other terror facilities as it prepared to break the ceasefire when it felt strong enough. In a let...

This was sent to the Washington Post on February 2. To the editor: For years, every time the Palestinian Arabs rejected peace, increased terror attacks or launched yet another war, Israel was pressured to make more concessions, rewarding Palestinian perfidy and leading to more violence and pushing peace further away. Rather than learning from those deadly mistakes, in his February 2 column, "The U.S. tacks hard toward a Mideast 'moment of truth,'" David Ignatius pushes for doubling down on them. Not even mentioned was the role the Biden Administration's pandering to the head of the snake, Iran, had in leading to Hamas' October 7 massacre. That slaughter, in which Fatah also participated, should have made it obvious even to those to whom it wasn't before that pushing for a Palestinian state prior to a fundamental change in Palestinian Arab society was insane. Sincerely, Alan Stein

This letter was sent to the Hartford Courant on January 30, 2024 regarding the suspension by several donor of funding to the puppet of Hamas known as UNRWA. Making that suspension of funding permanent would be one of the best things that could have to the Palestinian Arabs. Letter to the editor: Good news for Gaza To the editor: News that UNRWA's funding may dry up ("Finding of agency in Gaza is at risk," January 30) is good news for the people living in Gaza. For three-quarters of a century, UNRWA has subjugated the descendants of the Arabs who left their homes during the war they and their brethren waged to destroy the modern miracle of the third Jewish Commonwealth in the Land of Israel. It has prevented them from building new lives the way many millions of other refugees of the period did, whether from Nazi concentration camps, India, Pakistan, China or numerous other places. If UNRWA's funding does dry up permanently, the next generation of children in Gaza, Jude...

This letter was also about the ICJ's perverse refusal to throw out the absurd case against Israel brought by South Africa. It was sent to the Los Angeles Times on January 28, 2024.  Letter to the editor: Raz Segal gets the meaning of the ICJ's preliminary ruling backwards To the editor: Ignoring her reference to the self-imposed and self-perpetuated disaster the people who decades later adopted the identity of "Palestinian" eventually started calling a Nakba, Raz Segal completely misinterprets the significance of the perverse ruling by the "International Court of Justice." The ICJ is a political body rather than a true court, with the "justices" political appointees beholden to their own governments, most of which are either innately implacably hostile to Israel or intimidated by the huge Arab/Muslim bloc. Ergo, there was no chance the ICJ would do the right thing and dismiss the baseless and malicious South African case out of hand while reprimand...

This was sent to the Jerusalem Post on January 27 after the U(K)C(I)J irresponsibly failed to throw out the perverse case brought against Israel by South Africa, whose current government seems to be attempting to do the almost impossible and reach the level of immorality achieved by the former Apartheid government. Letter to the editor: Responding to the ICJ To the editor: The following two paragraphs should comprise Israel's complete response in a month to the demands of the ICJ: Although, as the court is undoubtedly aware, the charges against Israel filed by South Africa are baseless, beyond absurd and the court should have admitted that according to its own rules it did not have jurisdiction and, failing that, simply dismissed them out of hand, we will still provide the following report as unjustifiably demanded by the court. As you are undoubtedly similarly aware, throughout the conflict started by the barbaric terrorists from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah and suppose...

This was sent to the Washington Post on January 27, 2024 in response to an editorial calling on Israel to do virtually the opposite of what it really needs to do. To the editor: The January  22 editorial, "As hostages suffer, Israel needs to make tough strategic choices," is correct about Israel needing to make tough strategic choices, but the path Israel needs to choose is virtually the opposite of what the editorial advises. Time after time, Israel has given in to outside pressure and chosen short term calm over strategic necessities. The October 7 massacre was in large measure a consequence of that shortsightedness. One example is the way Israel gave in to the pressure to allow building materials into Gaza after previous wars started by Hamas, pretending to believe the assurances that measures would be taken to make sure it would be used for civilian purposes and none would get into the hands of Hamas. The extensive network of terror tunnels, more extensive than the London...

The Huffington Post is not known for treating Israel fairly. The February 1 article A Major U.N. Agency Is In Chaos. It’s Making Life Even Harder In Gaza  was no exception. So I sent the following letter to the Huffington Post at corrections@huffingtonpost.com, with a copy to the pro-terrorists, anti-Israel author Akbar Shahid Ahmed (akbar.ahmed@huffpost.com): Re the February 1, 2024 article "A Major U.N. Agency Is In Chaos. It’s Making Life Even Harder In Gaza" (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/us-un-unrwa-gaza-israel-aid_n_65bc2d3ee4b0a3aad5a464d7) by Akbar Shahid Ahmed: Besides being totally misguided, the article is infused with factual errors. In terms of being misguided: The article totally whitewashes the utter failure of UNRWA, which would have faded away seven decades ago if it hadn't already failed. It also whitewashes the way UNRWA, to greatly understate the situaion, is part of the problem. It's been no secret that UNRWA schools have been educating children ...