The March 11 letter by Bob Schaible (“Netanyahu’s actions part of familiar Israeli pattern”) contained significant distortions and misstatements.

The notion that “Israel sent Arab Jews into Egypt to bomb U.S. facilities in ways that implicated Muslim groups” in the 1950s is as fantastic a claim as ones that insist that the Holocaust did not occur.

While Schaible suggests that Israel “initiated a war with Egypt and Syria” in 1967, he ignores the fact that before hostilities began, those Arab armies were amassed at Israel’s borders with the intent of driving the inhabitants of the Jewish state into the sea.

And in a classic case of double-speak, he attempts to portray Israel as the obstacle to world peace, instead of the murderous, totalitarian regime in Iran and the barbaric Islamic State extremists.

Schaible’s between-the-lines insinuation is that rather than supporting the democratic, peace-seeking Israel, the U.S. might be better off to throw in its lot with Iran.

Moving to the current situation in Iran, does it really matter if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu changes his position on exactly how soon Iran would be able to obtain nuclear weapons? Isn’t it most frightening to think of nuclear weapons in the hands of anti-democracy, anti-West ayatollahs who brutally murder dissenters?

Israel and Netanyahu are in favor of negotiations with Iran that will lead to dismantling their nuclear program, as are the U.S. and its allies. But if this deal is not long-lasting, Israel will not be the only place in danger.

Steven Brinn

president

Ellie Miller

interim executive director

Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine

Portland