Opinion | A ‘Changed Landscape’: Voices From Israel

To the Editor:

I write this as I mark Israeli Independence Day in the changed landscape of my neighborhood.

Across the street: the home of a soldier killed in Gaza. Up the block: those of three more fallen soldiers. The park next to the grocery store: dedicated to the memory of another fallen soldier. Inside, an amputee carries yogurt with his elbow because his lower arm is gone. Around the corner: the home of a young man murdered at the Tribe of Nova music festival on Oct. 7.

Nearby: the home of my former student who defended Kfar Aza kibbutz until Hamas terrorists shot him. He’s been in the I.C.U. for seven months. Past the park: the home of Noa Marciano, a soldier and hostage who was murdered in Al-Shifa Hospital. Overhead: the drone of warplanes.

We are still under attack from Hamas and Hezbollah. No one in Israel is out of the cross hairs. We’re not sleeping soundly at night. We won’t breathe deeply until the hostages and our soldiers come home.

I want to start a school for religious Muslim and Jewish girls. I plan to spend next year studying Arabic. I dream of a two-state solution.

I think your coverage of this war would look different if you took a walk in my neighborhood.

Sarah Greenberg
Modiin, Israel

To the Editor:

We support the protests against Israel that take place on many campuses in the United States and call on the school administrations to accommodate these protests rather than attempt to crush them, although they disrupt normal activities and annoy people who support Israel’s general policies regarding the Palestinian people.

Supporting the protests does not mean agreeing with every slogan or opinion that is voiced or held by some of their participants. It means agreeing with their core demands, which, in the immediate term, call for an end to the brutal Israeli attack on Gaza and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory.

In the long term, the call is for a reasonable and stable resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict in a way that would allow members of both nationalities to live in peace and with dignity.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: The suffering of generations of Palestinians does not justify the massacres by Hamas on Oct. 7. Nor do these massacres justify the brutal attack that Israel launched on Gaza following that day.

Oded Goldreich
Anat Matar
Tel Aviv
Dr. Goldreich is a professor of computer science at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Dr. Matar is a senior lecturer at the department of philosophy at Tel Aviv University and a political activist.

Trump’s Cheer Squad

To the Editor:

Re “Loyalty in Trump’s Trial Guest List” (Political Memo, May 15):

The Trump election-interference trial (for that’s what it is) has seen a parade of high-profile Republicans in the courtroom to support their leader. We might think that members of Congress (including the House speaker, Mike Johnson) would have better things to do, like legislating, than to junket to Lower Manhattan to sit in on a criminal trial involving attempts to keep relevant information from voters.

But even if the attendees do not have actual work to do making the nation’s laws, have they no shame? Do they not realize that by abasing themselves in this way they are being dragged down to Donald Trump’s level? I suppose they do not care, but their constituents and the rest of us should.

Jonathan J. Margolis
Brookline, Mass.
The writer is a lawyer.

To the Editor:

Not only has the parade of bootlickers parroted Donald Trump’s lies, the mini-Trumps all dressed like him with dark blue suits and red ties. It would be funny if this cult of personality were not so dangerous.

Michael E. Mahler
Los Angeles

Hmm, Maybe A.I. Should Take Over the World

To the Editor:

Re “New Polls Find Trump in Lead in Swing States” (front page, May 14):

When I read that nearly 20 percent of polled respondents blame President Biden more than former President Donald Trump for overturning Roe v. Wade, I go from dreading A.I. taking over the world to rooting for it to do so.

Saul Janson
Venice, Calif.

A Call for Bipartisan Action

To the Editor:

Re “Amid Air Travel Turmoil, Senate Passes Legislation to Reauthorize the F.A.A.” (Business, May 10):

After months of negotiations, the bipartisan F.A.A. reauthorization is nearly ready for takeoff — but only because the House and the Senate were running out of runway. The lack of action on this critical funding unfortunately wasn’t a unique instance, but instead a paradigm of how Congress functions these days.

Upticks in near misses and shortages in safety inspectors and air traffic controllers should have been reason enough to reauthorize the agency months ago. But lawmakers put politicking before policymaking, as they used short-term extensions to prevent funding lapses and government shutdowns. This is not how Congress should legislate, at least on issues as critical as air transportation safety.

It’s time that our elected officials change the dynamic. They can do this if they regularly identify and prioritize win-win areas where bipartisanship is both possible and needed. As the November elections inch closer, Congress should not shirk its responsibilities and shy away from necessary bipartisan collaboration.

Liam deClive-Lowe
Paolo Mastrangelo
Washington
The writers are the co-founders and co-presidents of American Policy Ventures, an organization that helps policymakers work together.

Playing Catch

To the Editor:

Re “Quiet Joy in Games of Catch,” by Jessica Shattuck (Opinion guest essay, May 12):

Anytime a dad and his son can play catch is, for me anyway, a precious and an almost spiritual time. Too bad so many folks are too busy to enjoy such a simple fun thing to do.

Jack Murray
Raleigh, N.C.

To the Editor:

In a month I’ll be 81. My well-worn, decades-old baseball glove and two hardballs, one sitting deep in its pocket, sit on a low table near my front door.

To the Editor:

Re “Subtle Change in Street Signs Arouses English Towns Sticklers” (news article, May 12):

The North Yorkshire Council is not the only entity — and far from the first — to try to eliminate the apostrophe. An obscure government agency established in 1890, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, banned the use of the possessive apostrophe in U.S. place names under its authority for well over a century, granting five exceptions.

Most people have heard of Martha’s Vineyard, one of the five, but not the other four: Ike’s Point, John E’s Pond, Carlos Elmer’s Joshua View, and Clark’s Mountain.

If these little-known places have the coveted punctuation mark, why not Pikes Peak, Harpers Ferry, Toms River and others?

James P. Finnegan
Chappaqua, N.Y.