Readers respond to Schumer’s speech on Israel

Paul L. Newman, Merion Station, Pa.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has some nerve calling on Israel to hold new elections, saying he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost his way” in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and a growing humanitarian crisis.

I was not aware that Mr. Schumer was a citizen of Israel and member of Israel’s Knesset. Since when does the Senate majority leader have a right to tell another nation’s leader when to hold an election? Israel has every right to preserve its security by eliminating Hamas. The crisis would not have taken place had Hamas not launched terrorist attacks on Oct. 7. Schumer has become treyf, to use a Yiddish word, for those who really stand with Israel.

Larry Penner, Great Neck, N.Y.

Well said, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should, in any case, get fired for letting Israel get taken unawares on Oct. 7. Lethal incompetence like that cost Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir her job in 1974. Lacking vigilance led to many deaths in the Yom Kippur War. The same has happened again.

Tim Cox, Bern, Switzerland

I want to thank Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) for speaking so courageously against Mr. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli campaign in Gaza. Mr. Netanyahu has taken Israel down a path it will never come back from. Nobody will want to have anything to do with a pariah state.

The United States is a basket case, but Mr. Schumer is a beacon of light.

Michael Hegarty, Moycullen, Ireland

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States, did a public service in confronting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that he will never accept a two-state solution. President Biden, supporters of Israel and all who seek a durable and just peace between Israel and the Palestinians must contend with the reality that Mr. Netanyahu is neither a friend nor an ally of the United States. He works for his own benefit — and, incidentally, to advantage Donald Trump’s campaign to retake the White House.for consideration

Mr. Biden must stop merely suggesting a course correction to the intractable prime minister and should contemplate the following actions: Immediately recognize a Palestinian government. Stop providing offensive weapons to Israel until the conflict is over, and ship only defensive weapons, such as munitions for its Iron Dome antimissile system. Reaffirm the U.S. commitment to Israel’s strategic defenses. Organize a massive humanitarian relief campaign to deliver aid to Gaza by air, by sea and (given sufficient pressure) from Egypt. Call for an immediate cease-fire and for the Israeli government to prioritize the release or rescue of the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas and other parties. Announce an international coalition to work on the postwar governance and reconstruction of Gaza. Insist on a guaranteed right of return for Gazans who are not associated with Hamas. And — most important — declare his support for new elections in Israel.

Israel, its leadership, military and intelligence have an extraordinary history of being able to rescue hostages and to bring justice to terrorists and war criminals — without inflicting mass casualties among noncombatants. Even the Israeli “Iron Lady,” Prime Minister Golda Meir, refrained from annihilating the invading Egyptian Third Army during the Yom Kippur War. Deliberation, proportionality and precision have been hallmarks of Israeli military operations; Mr. Netanyahu’s Gaza campaign has demonstrated a radical departure from these tactical principles.

Mr. Netanyahu will continue the war until he is stopped. And shortly after he ceases his campaign on Gaza, he knows he will lose political power and be held accountable for security lapses before Oct. 7 and for past allegations of corruption. Israel is our ally, Netanyahu is not; he is an enemy of peaceful coexistence. Never underestimate the untrammeled malevolence of any would-be or de facto autocrat. Bet the other way.

Eric Radack, Santa Fe, N.M.

Don’t chip the Tidal Basin’s cherry trees

Regarding the March 14 Metro article “Spring brings a final bloom”:

The National Park Service plans to remove more than 150 of the 1,700 Yoshino cherry trees around the Tidal Basin to make room to rehab the area’s sea walls. Losing those trees is sad enough — though the Park Service intends to plant an even greater number of replacements. But sadder still is the plan to just grind those trees into mulch. Why not rough-cut the cherry trees that must be removed into various lengths and sell them for a charitable cause to the thousands of woodworkers in the region? Furniture and other projects made from that wood would be cherished for generations.

Robert Deigh, Fairfax

The FDR Memorial Legacy Committee was a consulting party to the National Park Service sea wall project and called for additional solutions to be considered for this project. While the Park Service is preparing a master plan for the Tidal Basin, it is timely to think about the fate of the rest of the cherry trees and the memorials around the Tidal Basin, both of which are vulnerable to rising tides.

One idea we are suggesting, beyond the hard engineering solution that is underway, is the use of the Tidal Basin gates — which need to be fixed and adapted — to mitigate flooding. While an increase of sea wall height can provide relief, the use of gates would add further long-term protection for everything around the Tidal Basin. As the gates are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, this is an opportunity for the Park Service and Corps of Engineers to model cross-agency coordination to tackle the growing issues of rising tides, storm surge and increased weather events.

As we lose cherry trees in this project, we are hopeful that the Park Service’s upcoming master plan will provide an innovative and comprehensive solution that will provide long-term protection of the cherry trees, all the memorials around the Tidal Basin and their carefully planned landscape designs.

Mary E. Dolan, Washington

The author is executive director of the FDR Memorial Legacy Committee.

Stop blowing smoke on cannabis

Regarding the March 11 letter “Marijuana needs better research”:

What we know about cannabis far exceeds what we don’t.

Scientists’ focus on cannabis has increased exponentially in recent years, as has our understanding of the plant, its active constituents, such as THC, their mechanisms of action and their effects on the user and upon society. Since 2013, researchers have published more than 32,000 scientific papers about cannabis and its constituents, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

In addition, several U.S. states have real-world experience with regulating cannabis for either medical or adult use dating back several decades. Various countries, including Canada and Israel, also regulate cannabis for these purposes — and have successfully done so for many years.

It is time for politicians and others to stop assessing cannabis through the lens of “what we don’t know” and instead start engaging in evidence-based discussions about marijuana and marijuana-reform policies that are informed by all that we do know.

Paul Armentano, Washington

The author is deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Mammoth hubris

I was stunned by the March 12 Health and Science article “Scientists say they are closer to reviving mammoths.”

Colossal Biosciences, a biotechnology company, claims that bringing back vanished animals is a chance to correct humanity’s role in the ongoing extinction crisis. The article said its goal is to genetically edit the nucleus of a stem cell with woolly mammoth genes and fuse it with an elephant egg, then “implant the embryo in an elephant surrogate and wait for it to give birth.” Do the scientists working at Colossal think they’re God?

Thank goodness the article included a voice of reason in Matthew Cobb, a zoologist at the University of Manchester in England, who questions how a mammoth, if one is born, will learn to behave like a mammoth. Both he and Heather Browning, a philosopher at the University of Southampton in England and a former zookeeper, remind us that most mammals and birds have complex social and cultural interactions. They learn survival skills from one generation to the next. Those skills will be absent if this experiment succeeds.

One of the most preposterous arguments for bringing back the mammoth is its proposed role in climate change. According to the article, Colossal says that “future Arctic herds can stomp down permafrost and prevent more of it from thawing and releasing atmosphere-warming carbon into the air.” Herds of stomping mammoths! What an astonishing image!

Another moving image: the puzzled look on the face of the surrogate that expects to give birth to a sweet little baby elephant and finds herself facing a hairy mammoth. Now that’s cruelty.

Barbara Morris, Falls Church