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Maduro & The Palestinians
Dear Editor:
The arrest of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro is a reminder that the U.S. has the ability to capture foreign tyrants and terrorists and bring them to justice—and various U.S. presidents have done so over the years.
So why don’t they ever pursue Palestinian Arab killers of Americans?
President George H.W. Bush ordered the capture of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega in 1990. Under George W. Bush, U.S. forces caught up with Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003.
During the Clinton and Bush administrations, U.S. commandos operating in Pakistan arrested Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, architect of the 9/11 attacks; and senior al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah.
Under President Barack Obama, U.S. special forces entered Libya to capture Ahmed Abu Khattala, one of the terrorists who attacked the American embassy in Benghazi.
A total of 187 American citizens have been murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists since the 1960s. Dozens of suspects in the killings are alive and residing in Palestinian Authority-governed territory. Some are serving in the PA security forces. Yet the U.S. has never attempted to capture them.
One of those killers is living freely in Jordan. That’s Ahlam Tamimi, who took part in the bombing of the Sbarro Pizzeria in Jerusalem in 2001. Sixteen people were murdered in that attack, seven of them children.
Three of the fatalities were American citizens. One was 15 year-old Malki Roth. Another, Mrs. Chana Nachenberg, was severely wounded and remained in a vegetative state for more than 20 years before passing away in 2003.
Tamimi has been indicted by the U.S. and is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. And the U.S. has an extradition treaty with Jordan, which receives over $1-billion in American aid each year. Yet no American president has ever demanded that Jordan hand her over.
On one occasion, long ago, the U.S. came close to bringing several Palestinian Arab killers of Americans to justice. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan ordered the interception of a plane carrying the four Palestine Liberation Front terrorists who hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro and murdered a wheelchair-bound American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer.
But the plane landed in Italy, the U.S. handed the terrorists over to the Italian authorities, and the hijackers ended up with punishments resembling a slap on the wrist: two were paroled in 1991, and the other two in 2005 and 2009.
Until someone in authority provides a more plausible explanation, the American public will have reason to suspect that the failure to arrest even one of these killers is rooted in political and diplomatic considerations—that is, successive U.S. presidents prioritizing friendly relations with the Palestinian Arab leadership over the pursuit of justice.
Sincerely
Prof. Rafael Medoff
Countering Contemporary Antisemitism
Dear Editor:
To counter contemporary antisemitism effectively, it is necessary to rethink how it is framed in public discourse. We should learn from the rhetorical strategies used by Islamist extremists, who successfully rebrand terrorists as oppressed, starving, dispossessed “freedom fighters.” Language shapes perception, and reframing works.
Rather than labeling figures such as Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, or Candace Owens merely as antisemites, it is both more accurate and more effective to describe their rhetoric as anti-Jewish racism, or simply racism. In today’s vernacular, “racist” carries exceptional moral weight and is most commonly associated with hostility toward African Americans. This association persists despite the fact that African Americans are not a biological race and, in fact, exhibit some of the highest genetic diversity of any human population.
What matters, however, is not biological precision but how prejudice functions. White supremacists like David Duke do not concern themselves with genetic nuance; they indiscriminately lump people together and disparage them as groups based on distorted and prejudiced perceptions. Jews are treated in precisely the same way—collectively stereotyped, scapegoated, and dehumanized.
In this sense, antisemitism is not a special or separate category of hatred. Antisemitism is racism: hostility toward Jews as a group, rooted in conspiracy thinking, essentialism, and collective blame. Naming it as such clarifies the harm and dismantles the false notion that antisemitism is somehow different from, or less serious than, other forms of racial hatred.
Sincerely
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
Edison, NJ
Who is Responsible for Electing Mamdani?
Dear Editor:
At least 66%+ of us Jewish NYC voters voted against Mamdani and we were the only one of the recorded religious/ethnic groups to vote against him in such high numbers.
Too many people on the Right (Non Jews & Jews) that are ignorant of the details of the NYC 2025 Mayor Election are stating or implying on social media that ALL NYC Jews voted for MAMDANI — when in fact the truth is that a very large majority of NYC Jews voted against him.
First of all the total NYC combined vote of ALL voters who voted against Mamdani was 49%.
In the Liberal (and Jewish) parts of Manhattan like the Upper East Side a whopping 70% went against Mamdani!!!!
We NYC Jews voted in the highest percentages of ANY recorded NYC ethnic/religious groups — AGAINST Mamdani in the 2025 NYC General Election for Mayor with a total of at least 66% of NYC Jewish voters voting against him and even way higher percentages of Jews voting against him in many NYC neighborhoods approaching over 80% and over 90% of Jews voting against Mamdani.
Christians, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics and especially Muslims & South Asians — recent new legal immigrants all voted for Mamdani in dramatically higher percentages and numbers (than Jews did) and those groups made up the overwhelming majority of the composition of NYC voters and NOT the Jews.
Stop creating fuel to Extreme Rightwing Jew Haters to make them FALSELY and wrongly think that ALL NYC Jews or a majority of NYC Jews voted for Mamdani.
MAMDANI WAS ELECTED BY THRONGS OF MUSLIMS AND SOUTH ASIANS AND BLACKS AND RECENT THIRD WORLD LEGAL IMMIGRANTS WHO SUPPORTED HIM IN VERY HIGH NUMBERS.
The total Jewish vote for ALL NYC candidates for Mayor combined was only 10% to 15% of the entire NYC electorate.
Jews make up dramatically less of the NYC voting composition electorate than they did decades ago in NYC in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Now only 10% to 15%.
If 100% of all NYC Jews who voted, had voted against Mamdani — HE STILL WOULD HAVE WON!! And there’s no such thing in ANY election of a group voting 100% one way or the other.
I’m tired of people who aren’t current NYC residents making WRONG assumptions that Jews elected Mamdani!!
Blame the NYC Muslims, Asians, South Asians, Christians, Blacks, Hispanics — who are the actual ones responsible for electing him!!
Sincerely
Stu Morrison
Queens, NY