Dear FRONTLINE,

Thank you for the courageous program. In spite of being born and raised in Israel, I still find it shocking watching these extremists. The truth though is that they are not such a small group in Israel, and although they are very extreme there are many people that support them. The settlers have turned the lives of the Palestinians into a living hell: a Palestinian farmer cannot even harvest his own olive trees with out having international people intervene, to protect him against the settlers. The Palestinians are terrorized in many other ways by the settlers, like; being shot at and having their wells poisoned. It should be the duty of the Israeli army to protect them, but the army mostly doesn’t care!
The Israeli government is supporting them in many ways by continuing the occupation, helping them steal land, giving special rights and funding. The settlers are free to go everywhere but the Palestinians are very limited in where and when the can move around. In your show, one can almost start thinking that this is just a small fraction in Israel but actually it is well supported either in an active way or just by the indifference of the majority of the Israeli people.

Smadar Carmon
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Dear FRONTLINE,

Bravo PBS! The mainstream media in the US will never show anything like this. Instead they show distorted picture of Israeli/Palestinian conflict. This program clearly shows that fundamentalist groups in any religion (no matter how small and large group they are) are a serious problem for any country they live in.

All responsible governments should keep a watchful eye on these hateful religious groups before they become really dangerous for their societies.

Ateeq Ahmed

Dear FRONTLINE,

It was refreshing to see Frontline present "Israel's Next War." I spent several weeks in Israel and Occupied Palestine in late 2003, including meeting with extremist Jewish settlers in the Hebron area. This film accurately exposed the exclusive supremisist thinking of these Jewish settlers. Unfortunately the documentary did not accurately portray Israel's complicit role in this mess. These trailers could never even get into Occupied Palestine and onto Palestinian land without the approval and protection of the Israeli military. Israel treats these Jewish supremist settlers more like errant children than the criminals they are.

When will Frontline air a documentary about the Hebron Palestinians? Many Hebron Palestinians endure twenty-four hour curfews enforced by the Israeli Military in order to provide Jewish settlers exclusive unencumbered access through Palestinian streets and markets to visit the Tomb of the Patricarhs, a holy site for Christians and Muslims too.

Frances ReMillard
Kamas, Utah

Dear FRONTLINE,

In this inflammatory and highly biased film one important fact is glossed over and probably overlooked by most of the viewers: almost all "jewish terrorist" after many month of incarceration were released becaused secret service could not prove a single crime perpetrated by them. Actually narrator's tone clearly hints that it's all part of world jewish conspiracy.
The fact that this film was made by the jews does not make it less antisemitic. Self-hatred is characteristic to some members of Jewish people for thousands of years. This film has honorable place beside Protocols of Elders of Zion.

Boris Ginis
Boston, MA

Dear FRONTLINE,

Are there connections between these radical rightist Israelis and radical rightists fundementalists groups in the U.S?

Many U.S. fundementalists say that Bible prophecy predicts that the reconstruction of the Temple will bring the return of Jesus.

John Stewardson
Carbondale, IL

Dear FRONTLINE,

I was very distressed to see Frontline present this program at this time. It is highly inflammatory and negative, at a time when the greatest hopes for peace in the region are being held by the great majority of people. Of course these hopes are based at the moment on fragile relationships; a contribution highlighting the steps toward success rather than the fears of failure would have been much more welcome.

Diane Fisher
Saratoga, Ca

Dear FRONTLINE,

While I applaud Frontline for exposing the activities and attitudes of these atrocious right wing extremists occupying Palestinian land, I think the program should also have pointed out (at least once during the entire hour) that the Israeli government itself practices, sanctions, and even encourages the continued occupation of land that rightfully (under international law) belongs to the Palestinians. ...

Let's have a Frontline program that focuses on the history and plight of the Palestinian people and the brave and humanitarian Jews on the left in Israel who through profound human compassion and a sense of outrage are protesting their government by reaching out to the Palestinians, rebuilding their homes, and refusing to serve in the armed forces in the occupied territories.

Christopher Jewell
San Rafael, CA

Dear FRONTLINE,

After watching Frontline’s “Israel’s Next War?” I am, as a Jew, both saddened and ashamed that these Jewish religious fanatics among the settlers seem to be conscienceless, shameless, and full of murderous hate. As a survivor of five and a half years of the Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz, and several Dachau concentration camps I am angry and despair that these sanctimoniously murderous goons are besmirching the meaning of that despairing victory cry of " Never Again! " of those pitifully few of us who survived the Shoah-Holocaust.

My fervent wish is that the Israeli government will more swiftly and fully recognize the danger to Israel, the Israelis, the Diaspora Jews, the Israeli Arabs, and to the world at large represented by these Jewish Nazis. Are they so vaingloriously God-drunk as to thrust for a Jewish master race, are they so stupid as to fashion their equivalent to "Gott Mitt Uns!" on their belt buckles, and finally are the so bereft of the lessons of history as to think of a Jewish 1,000-year Reich? Are they so arrogant that they cannot see the equivalence of their smirks with the smirks of the SS?

The Israeli government must bear down on them 100% before they destroy it and, at the same time, destroy any hope for peaceful life for both Diaspora and Israeli Jews and extinguish “The Light Unto the Nations”. If this government does not exert its full force in a timely fashion, then I fear it could fall in a similarly horrifying way as the Weimar Republic fell to the Nazis.

I am truly heartsick to feel this way!

Walter Plywaski (ex-inmate of Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz & Dachau)

Walter Plywaski
Boulder, Colorado

Dear FRONTLINE,

Israel's Next War was a wonderful showcase of what responsible, educated and ethical journalism is capable of. I have the greatest respect for Frontline and this show in particular. It takes great courage to tell the truth. It takes incredible skill to tell the truth well. You have done that. My congratulations. Please keep up the great work. Please know that late at night, when Frontline comes on after a day of our routine lives, that we can appreciate the magic of what you do for us.

Bill Zane
Santa Rosa, California

Dear FRONTLINE,

Thank you for this additional perspective and in discussing the extremist position of others in the Middle East.

maryanne murphy

Dear FRONTLINE,

Once again another biased report. Extremism is bandied about pretty carelessly in Israel. Settlers actions are always found extreme; Israel releasing thousands of Palestinian murderers as a reward for the intifada; not so extreme.

Sharon, who always encouraged settlement of Israel, deciding to betray his constituency by forcibly removing hundreds of thousands from their homes, leaving Gaza Judenrein; not extreme. Why do people,
attending the funeral of murdered infant, have to be called by what is now a perjorative, "settler?

Renee Kaminetzky
Monsey, NY

Dear FRONTLINE,

Thank you for this eye-opening program. It's one of the best I've seen on Frontline.

The romance of the Jewish "us against the world" does not hold up well to the reality that is daily palestinian suffering. The truth is that as the Europeans did to Native Americans, the Jews did and are doing to Palestinians; they stole the land that Arabs had been inhabiting for over 1800 yrs; they took it with violence, terror and deceit. It is true that the neighboring arab nations used this conflict for their own ends. But it does not negate the fact of displacement. While it is too late to right that wrong (as it is also too late to right the wrongs against Native Americans in the States), we can encourage all parties involved to work toward a peaceful co-existence.

Suffering does not make it right to do to others what they did to you. This ethos has resulted in this radical Jewish group which takes Hitler's philosophy of a pure Germany and moves it to a parallel realization--an Israel purely of Jews, no matter the human cost.

As long as people believe in an inflexible, vengeful god, there will be no peace in the middle east, let alone the world. Unfortunately, religious fundamentalism around the world is bringing back a vengeful god in all forms: Jewish, Islamic and Christian. May all rational, humane people bring about a reverse of this horrifying trend.

young june

Dear FRONTLINE,

I do not see the difference between the Jewish extremists and the Arab extremists. The situation reminds me of an exercise where one compares communism and fascism; both although on seemingly opposite sides of the political spectrum appeared closer to each other than any other ideology. They both are totalitarian, both have no regard for human rights, and both are blind by irrational paradigms The political line is no longer a line it becomes a circle and seeming polar opposites are in reality are beside each other.

Isaac Padilla
Long Beach, CA

Dear FRONTLINE,

A friend invited me to an event sponsored by a local Chabad synagogue. The speaker was a chassidic Jew who was visiting from the West Bank, and articulated much the same ideology as the subjects in this piece, but without the violent rhetoric. An appeal for funds was made.

It seemed eerily like the Islamic charities in the U.S. that are suspected of supporting terrorists in the Middle East through fund-raising among American Moslems. Could it be that there are groups within the American ultra-Orthodox Jewish community that are secretly supporting the right-wing Israeli settlers?

Calvin Bogges
Moorpark, CA

Dear FRONTLINE,

Dear Frontline,

Thank you for your broadcast about Fundamentalist Jewish Extremism in Israel. We hear about Hamas, Hizballah, et.al. almost constantly but the Kahanists are seldom, if ever, mentioned.

It was also good to see footage of the IDF using force against the Kahanists as well. While there is a great disparity between the levels of force used by the IDF against Jewish and Muslim terrorists (I have yet to hear of an Israeli rocket attack against a settlement!), that force is used at all discredits some of the claims of Israel's detractors.

Noticeably absent from your broadcast, however, was the murder of 29 men in prayer at a Hebron mosque by Kahanist and Brooklyn born Dr. Baruch Goldstein in 1994.

It also bears mentioning that an International Kahanist organization called The Jewish Defence League (JDL) is headquartered in Los Angeles, and has chapters throughout the US, Canada, Europe, Russia, and in South Africa.

Finally, I wonder if hearing the one young man say something to the effect of "Israel for The Jewish People" also thought that it sounded similar to "Germany for the German People".

Harold Rehling
Kissimmee, Florida