Courage in Israel

Re: Israel braces for what may come next, Vivian Bercovici, Nov. 25

In the past, the State of Israel has taken upon itself to send bombed-out bus carcasses to Holland, into The Hague, where the International Criminal Court goes through its motions, one of which is studiously avoiding any meaningful criticism of certain terrorist activities.

Thank you to Ms. Bercovici for her on-the-spot insights. Sadly, one feels she is right to anticipate coming waves of violence against more such “soft targets.”

I feel the next bus — or perhaps the one badly damaged the other day, when the Canadian-israeli striver Aryah Schupak, 16, was appallingly killed — ought to be taken to the forecourt of the next-to-useless United Nations (a.k.a. the “Anti-israel Assembly”) in New York City.

Bercovici is to be commended on her staying put in Tel Aviv, as are a selection of my friends in Israel who will, bravely in my eyes, not be cowed by real terrorism or threats there — unlike the cowering, clownish, cowardly Liberal government in Ottawa this year — and continue to take public transit there as well.

Courage underpins the basic actions of all leading individuals, from King David to Winston Churchill to Tommy Douglas to Viola Desmond to Barbara Frum, and it is a crucial inward-determined hinge component of the “basics” of decent Judeo-christian living anywhere, but most especially in such democracies as embattled Israel, a gem of a democracy in a neighbourhood of ghastly, thuggish authoritarianism; or, even, in grown soft Canada, now held down by Lilliputian civil servants of woke leanings, myriad unaccountable government “advisers,” and by artfully disingenuous Liberal cabinet ministers, some of whom could use a good “walk in the snow” just about now.

R.H. Bredin, Toronto