Obama’s bias
The headline, “Obama was most pro-Palestinian and pro-Arab US president ever, Cameron says” (September 25) should surprise no one. The grandfather of ex-president, Barack Hussein Obama II was a Kenyan, Hussein Onyango Obama. He converted from his tribal religion to Catholicism, and then to Islam.
With a middle name, Hussein, and a Muslim grandfather, it would be delusional to expect Obama when president to act like a Yiddisher Papa! GERRY MYERS
Beit Zayit
“Obama was most pro-Palestinian and pro-Arab US president ever, Cameron says,” deserves a response, because it overlooks many positive things Obama did for Israel: • Israeli strategic experts agreed that strategic cooperation between the
US and Israel had never been better. • During the Obama administration, the US supplied funding for the “Iron Dome” missile defense system that has saved many Israeli lives. • Except for its final abstention, aiming to keep prospects for peace alive,
the Obama administration consistently backed Israel at the UN and helped prevent a declaration of a Palestinian state by the UN, an effort that led Prime Minister Netanyahu to declare that Obama deserved a “badge of honor.”
• Obama supported Israel with regard to the Gaza flotilla events and the Goldstone report that was critical of Israel’s actions in the 2009 Gaza war.
• In response to a frantic, middle-of-the night call from Netanyahu, Obama’s actions saved six Israelis who were trapped in the Israeli embassy in Cairo. Afterward, Netanyahu stated that Israel owes Obama, “a special measure of gratitude.” • In his talk to the US Congress in March 2015, Netanyahu praised
Obama warmly, indicating that Obama had done many additional things for Israel that only he and a few others know about.
RICHARD H. SCHWARTZ, PH.D. Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Island
After years of being vilified by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it is about time we Israelis stop buying Turkish products and flying Turkish-affiliated airlines like Turkish Air and Pegasus.
For years we have been told that it is just Erdogan, not the Turkish people who dislike us.
We have continued as if it is business as usual and continue to buy Turkish consumer goods sold to us by companies like Rami Levy (which produces a lot of its private-label foods there), and air travel that includes up to as many as 10 flights a day to Istanbul and other Turkish gateways.
El Al stopped flying years ago to Turkey due to the Turkish government’s decision to not allow armed Israeli security to man Israeli flights. Despite that, Israel allows unlimited flights a day, giving Turkey the monopoly on those flights.
If the Turkish people really do like us and do like to do business with us
(and profit from us), we need them to finally pressure their leadership into toning down the incendiary hateful rhetoric that President Erdogan uses against us, including what he recently did at the United Nations (“PM slams Erdogan for comparing Gaza to Shoa” (September 25). Otherwise we
should seriously contemplate boycotting Turkish consumer goods and airlines. SHLOMO LOSHINSKY
Ma’aleh Adumim