‘Council to Override Bloomberg ‘s Veto’

Jill Gardiner’s article [“Council To Override Bloomberg’s Veto of Food-Stamp Bill,” New York, July 27, 2005] on the food stamps legislation authored by Council Member Eric Gioia rightly points out that hundreds of thousands of hungry families stand to benefit from expanded access to food stamps.

This common-sense initiative will not only feed those in need, it will bring an added benefit: over $1 billion in federal food stamp aid that could come in to our city’s supermarkets, grocery stores, and bodegas, and help fuel our local economy if more people who qualified for food stamps received them.

The additional money flowing into these businesses means more grocery-store jobs. Many of these jobs will be union jobs that pay a living wage and health-care benefits. Since people who receive food stamps can use more of their earnings for goods other than food, the ripple effect will be felt well outside the grocery industry.

Expanding access to food stamps does, as Mr. Gioia says, value families and reward hard work. Mayor Bloomberg’s veto is the wrong choice for New York’s working families. I commend Mr. Gioia, whose investigations into food stamp access issues have pointed this out many times over the past several years, and Council Member Bill de Blasio for putting together a common-sense plan to feed hungry kids and provide a boost to our city’s businesses and workers. The sooner the council overrides the veto, the better.

BRUCE W. BOTH
President, Local 1500
United Food and Commercial Workers Queens

‘The End of Israel ?’

Cal Thomas’s article “The End of Israel?” [Opinion, August 4, 2005] brought tears to my eyes. He is considering “what retreat from Gaza bodes for the future of the Jewish state” and sees Israel slowly disappearing. He sees the Arabs, energized by Israel’s retreat from terror in Gush Katif/Gaza and also in the northern Shomron, continuing on their murderous rampage until all of Israel is destroyed.

He predicts “Israeli cities reduced to rubble and casualties running to perhaps tens of thousands, or more.” How and why does all this happen? Mr. Thomas reminds us of history and the fact that nothing has changed. The same hate education that started in 1993 with the Arafat “peace” accord continues today, with the armies of Arab suicide bombers growing daily. He sees the West with “new blood on its hands, which history will not, and should not, allow it ever to wipe clean.”

I believe Mr. Thomas is absolutely correct in his prophetic vision. I would add, though, what Yoram Ettinger wrote in the article about American interests being undermined by Israel’s retreat from Gaza [“Undermining U.S. Interests,” Opinion, August 3]. Mr. Ettinger sees American GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan suffering more and more casualties as terrorists gain strength from Israel’s retreat.

He cites the disasters that have resulted from Israel’s and America’s previous “disengagements.” He believes that “‘Disengagement’ would bolster the Palestinian Authority, which has been the most sustained pro-Saddam, pro-Bin Laden, pro-Iran, pro-Russia, pro-North Korea, and pro-China regime in the Middle East … at the expense of American posture in the eastern flank of the Mediterranean.”

You have presented two erudite men, among many, who predict dire results for Israel and America should Prime Minister Sharon proceed with step one of his expulsion plans. I don’t believe there is a single voice that will tell us that this empowerment plan for Arab terrorism will make Israel and America more secure. Life and death hang in the balance here. The people choose life. The leaders must follow.

HELEN FREEDMAN
Executive Director
Americans For a Safe Israel
Manhattan

‘Raise for Summers’

Re: Daniel Hemel’s article “Raise for Summers Led Board Member To Leave Harvard,” Page 1, August 2, 2005, and Conrad Harper’s statement quoted in the article, that he “could not and cannot support a raise” in the salary of Harvard’s president: Both assume that Lawrence Summers got a raise. However, the 3% raise adjusted for inflation keeps Mr. Summers’s salary pretty much the same as last year.

PARUN KHANNA
Visiting Professor of Finance
College of Business Administration
Butler University
Indianapolis, Ind.

---

Please address letters intended for publication to the Editor of The New York Sun. Letters may be sent by e-mail to editor@nysun.com, facsimile to 212-608-7348, or post to 105 Chambers Street, New York City 10007.Please include a return address and daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited.