Letters to the Editor
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‘Arendt’s Conflicted Zionism’
Hannah Arendt’s conflicted Zionism might not have been a problem had she followed the advice in Julian Benda’s “Betrayal of the Intellectuals” to remain in the ivory tower and stay out of practical affairs, especially politics, or had she followed Ortega y Gasset’s suggestion that philosophers continue to be philosophers instead of journalists, statesmen, and so forth [Arts&Letters, “Arendt’s Conflicted Zionism,” March 21, 2007].
That aside, her alleged lack of “love,” or favoritism, for anything to do with herself, including the Jewish people, seems, when one considers the injunctions to “love thy neighbor as thyself” or to treat strangers kindly as “ye were strangers in the land of Egypt,” to be more Jewish than Marxist.
HERBERT DIENSTAG
New York, N.Y.
‘Five Enemies’
Your editorial “Five Enemies” harshly criticized Italy with respect to the reciprocal releases of an Italian journalist in Afghanistan and five Taliban prisoners, even going so far as to say that ” … the Italians and the Afghans deserve each other … ” [Editorial, “Five Enemies,” March 23, 2007]. While people can reasonably disagree about the exchange of prisoners and hostage, American readers should keep in mind, according to CNN tabulations, that Italians are the second largest group of foreigners killed in the Iraq war, with 32 deaths. The largest group is Britons, with 134 deaths. The third largest is Polish, with19 deaths, and the fourth is Ukrainians, with 18 deaths.
NAPOLEON WILLIAMS
New York, N.Y.
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