Glib comparisons to the Holocaust hide the truth

Opinion: March 17, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

EDITOR:

In a March 12 letter, “A new era with new victims,” the writer claims that the Holocaust against the Jews is being repeated nowadays in Gaza, except that now the Jews are the bad guys and the Palestinians are the innocent victims.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Hitler’s plan for the extermination of the Jews extended beyond Europe. His honorary guest in Berlin was Haj Amin El Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the leader of all the Palestinian Arabs. He stayed in Berlin throughout the World War II, being groomed to be in charge of the extermination of the Palestinian Jews once the German general Rommel conquered Palestine, a British colony at that time. Rommel failed, and the Jews were saved. However, the Palestinian Islamic national movement founded by El Husseini survived and evolved into Hamas, the current rulers in Gaza. Unlike their cowardly supporters in the west, Hamas declares publicly their intention, which is written clearly in their charter, to replace all of Israel with an Arab Palestinian state and to eliminate its Jewish population. Ahmadinijad, the Iranian president and Hamas’ main political and financial supporter, has called numerous times for the “wiping out the Zionist Entity” (Israel).

The recent Israeli invasion into Gaza was intended to stop the endless bombardment of innocent Israeli civilians by Hamas’ rockets. Innocent Palestinians were also hurt by this invasion, only because they were used by Hamas as human shields and their houses and schools as storage depots for rockets. Ironically the only ones who tried to minimize civilian casualties were the Israeli soldiers.

If we learn anything from the Holocaust, we should know that thugs like Hitler and the Hamas mean what they say. We also have to avoid buying into their clever propaganda machine. Hitler fabricated a story about Polish attack on Germany as a pretext to justify starting WWII. Hamas and their supporters are trying to portray Israel as the troublemaker in the Middle East.

ASHER RABINOWITZ

Liberty

Setting the record straight

EDITOR:

In the letter of March 6 concerning abortions, I think the writer was misinformed. I would like to inform her that all black Democrats are not pro-abortion. If she had checked statistics she would probably have found that most blacks have their children; they don’t abort them. Also, Planned Parenthood does not promote abortions. It tries to encourage birth control, not emphasize abortion.

Regarding Thomas Sowell and Rush Limbaugh, I think they both are educated idiots. Sowell keeps trying to compare President Obama to Hitler and Rush shows he doesn’t care about the American citizens when he states that he hopes President Obama fails. How can someone be so vile as to hate one individual so much that he wishes his own country to fail? I think both of these individuals need psychiatric evaluation and counseling.

What is it with our citizens that they forget so quickly what shambles this country was in before President Obama took office? They are complaining about the stimulus package costing too much when the Iraq war will cost trillions, plus costing the lives of many of our young people.

Mr. Obama has stated that he walked into this eight-year mess. We want him to work miracles in less than two months. The only one that can work miracles in this situation is God Almighty.

OLLA L. TATE

Youngstown