Independence Day supplement

While not diminishing the overwhelming joy and gratitude we should all feel and openly express in the celebration of Israel’s 70th birthday, and without lessening the recognition due to the individuals, institutions, projects and programs highlighted in your special Israel Independence Day supplement (“Israel at 70,” April 18), I am deeply disappointed and pained, but not necessarily shocked, that nowhere in the 50 pages are the words God, Torah or even mention of the religion of Judaism.

How can this be? How can we truly and analytically talk about any of the ideas posed in the supplement’s sub-title of “A look at the modern-day miracle: how we came to be, what we’ve accomplished and what lies ahead” unless in our expressions of pride and achievement we recognize the essential concept that Israel, the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are one, as somehow being a fundamental element of the realization of these miracles.

Sadly, I am not totally shocked by the absence of any mention of God and Torah because unfortunately, I have over the years become somewhat accustomed to the oft articulated concept of “Through my strength and power of my own hand, have I accomplished all this achievement.”

Many are uncomfortable with the notion of our being a “chosen people,” thereby failing to understand that this is inextricably linked to our bringing blessings to the world, no small component of which is our achievement in multiple fields of endeavor and our calling to be exemplars par excellence of moral, ethical living. What makes us stand out, whether we acknowledge it or not or are comfortable with it or not, is not simply our noteworthy achievements, but that we do all this in the fulfillment of our role to enhance the world in which we live as identifiable members of the nation of Israel, the Jewish people. SIDNEY (SHALOM) STRAJCHER Jerusalem

From what planet are Udi Dekel and Anat Kurtz (“Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip: Toward a better future”), who describe this as a “critical imperative”?

Fundamental to their urgent prescription for the Gaza Strip is that Israel must take the lead to “mobilize regional and international support and involvement in the project.” Who and where are the Gazans who will cooperate in this grandiose scheme? Surely not Gaza’s Jew-hating Hamas, which banks on the death of Gazans to portray Israel as the source of all of the Gaza Strip’s wretched conditions (which don’t affect Hamas higher-ups).

Every effort to ameliorate conditions for Gaza’s non-belligerents has failed because of Hamas leaders’ preference for guns over butter, the better to kill Jews.

In addition, the authors’ grand plans for the Gaza Strip prolong the Palestinian Arabs’ agenda to do nothing for themselves, to maintain reliance on money from duped, sympathetic westerners, and to make Israel, the Gazans’ sworn enemy, their caretaker. STEVE KRAMER Kfar Saba

Reading supplement editor Noa Amouyal’s opening piece (“Making something out of nothing”), I thought I was in a parallel universe. Ms. Amouyal claims it would be “remiss” not to include a story on Israel’s Arab population, as “our independence is their ‘Nakba’ (catastrophe) .... ”

The Arab “nakba” is the failure to annihilate the nascent Jewish state and its people. Let this be perfectly clear.

Ms. Amouyal seems to feel the need to take responsibility for our enemy’s implacable hatred and its result. Where is her Jewish pride – and self-respect? ILANA BARDA Tel Mond