A26 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 , 2019
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR[email protected]LOCAL OPINIONSJoin the debate at washingtonpost.com/local-opinionsB
ENJAMIN NETANYAHU, who has been Isra-
el’s dominant leader for the past decade,
suffered a crippling and perhaps politically
mortal blow in Tuesday’s elections — and for
all the right reasons. Having conducted a vile cam-
paign directed at Israel’s Arab minority, Mr. Netan-
yahu saw his Likud party l ose hundreds of thousands
of votes and a critical handful of parliamentary seats,
compared with the previous election in April — while
Arab parties increased their representation by
30 percent. Following wild promises by Mr. Netanya-
hu to annex large parts of the West Bank, the
first-place finisher in the preliminary vote count was
the centrist Blue and White party, which opposes
annexation or other steps that would preclude the
creation of a Palestinian state.
The election left neither major party with a clear
path to a parliamentary majority, a nd i n the scrum of
post-election m aneuvering, Mr. Netanyahu might yet
find a way to stay on as prime minister. But if Israel’s
other parties stick to their campaign positions, a
leader who has polarized his country and damagedIsrael’s standing in the United States could finally be
forced from office — or, at least, prevented from
following through on his most extreme promises.
At the center of the post-election horse-trading
will be Avigdor Lieberman, a former disciple of
Mr. Netanyahu who leads a secular right-wing party
that controls the swing votes in the Knesset. Mr. Lie-
berman, who forced the election by refusing to join
with Mr. Netanyahu following the April vote, is
saying he will support only a “unity” government
joining the Likud and Blue and White parties and
excluding the religious and far-right factions Mr. Ne-
tanyahu has been allied with. For his part, Blue and
White leader Benny Gantz, a former general, has said
his party will not participate in a coalition led by
Mr. Netanyahu.
Whether those politicians stick to their vows, they
will likely resist any effort by Mr. Netanyahu to
protect himself through legislation from a looming
indictment on corruption charges, which could
come within weeks. That c ould force him from office
even if his Likud party d oes not move to replace him.A centrist government could also block Likud’s
attempt to strip power from Israel’s Supreme Court
and curtail a crackdown on human rights groups.
President Trump might be sorry to see Mr. Netan-
yahu ousted or constrained. The Israeli leader has
been perhaps his most faithful foreign follower, and
one who shared his antipathy toward the media and
other democratic institutions. But Israel’s relations
with the United States might be improved by a new
prime minister. Mr. Netanyahu, who increasingly
aligned himself with the Republican Party, has done
much to polarize Americans’ view of Israel. Support
for the Jewish state among Democrats has plummet-
ed, according to polls.
An Israeli government that recommitted itself to
liberal norms could begin to reverse that damage. A
centrist coalition would also be more open to the
Israeli-Palestinian peace Mr. Trump says he wants to
broker. No breakthrough can be expected anytime
soon. But at best, Israel’s election could arrest what
has been a dangerous slide toward a self-defeating
nationalism.Bye-bye, Bibi?
Mr. Netanyahu’s defeat could halt Israel’s slide toward nationalism.
Regarding the Sept. 14 Metro article “Rebel stat-
ues, golden calves”:
One may or may not like Confederate monu-
ments, but if the invocation of God and the use of
religious vocabulary at installation ceremonies are
the standard by which i dolatry is to be judged, then
there are many more monuments that may be
considered idols. Consider, for example, these
words spoken by Chief Justice William H oward Ta ft
at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial on
Decoration Day, May 30, 1922: “Here is a shrine at
which all can worship. H ere a n altar upon w hich t he
sacrifice was made in the cause of liberty. Here a
sacred religious refuge in which those who love
country and love God can find inspiration and
repose.” Sounds pretty religious to me. Perhapsmore tolerance would be inspired by these addi-
tional words f rom Ta ft r emarking o n the location of
the memorial: “Visible... from the Capitol...
[and] from Arlington, where lie the Nation’s hon-
ored d ead... U nion and Confederate alike, it marks
the restoration of the brotherly love of the two
sections.”
You may or may not like your relatives, or your
fellow countrymen and -women. But you’re pretty
much s tuck with both, and life is better if you try to
get along. Now would be a good time for a l ittle more
tolerance and a little l ess judgment o n both sides.
Matthew Krafft, BethesdaMore tolerance, less judgment
ABCDE
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
F
OUR MINUTES and one second. That is how
long it took before D.C. firefighters were dis-
patched to the blaze at a Northwest rowhouse
last month. Was there a delay in sending help
that might have contributed to the deaths of two
people? Or did emergency responders do the best they
could under d ifficult circumstances? T he question i s a
critical o ne t hat city officials need to address; they can
start by r eleasing m ore information about the events.
The actions of the agency that handles 911 and
other c alls for a ssistance have come under s crutiny in
the fallout over the failure of government agencies to
respond to complaints about u nsafe conditions a t the
house at 708 Kennedy St. NW. Investigation by The
Post’s Peter Jamison and Peter Hermann detailed the
“cascade of bureaucratic bungling, miscommunica-tion and missed chances.”
Administration officials have been candid about
mistakes made by the D.C. Department of Consumer
and Regulatory Affairs and the fire department but
have defended the Office of Unified C ommunications
for its actions in responding to the Aug. 18 fire. A
police officer told a dispatcher there was a fire at the
location, but instead of immediately sending help to
the scene, the dispatcher spent four minutes and one
second processing the call. Officials said an internal
review determined the call was handled well and the
dispatcher’s q uestions were key in deciding what type
of equipment to send. They also point out that help
was on the scene approximately seven minutes after
the c all came in.
But national experts say every second counts andthe dispatch window deemed acceptable is 30 to
90 seconds. “ I normally s tay out o f these... but this is
beyond ridiculous” was the start of a Facebook post
taking the city to task from Marc Bashoor, a former
fire chief in Prince George’s County who is now fire
chief in Florida’s Highland County. He pointed out
that the q uality of the call i s what matters, and there i s
no justification for not responding immediately to a
report of a fire at a specific a ddress by a police officer.
The city’s policy is not to release transmissions, but
it is important that the public be given the information
so people can hear and judge for themselves whether
officials are right that dispatchers did what they could
in a challenging situation. The D.C. Council, which
plans to examine the District’s handling of the proper-
ty, should also do its own review of this matter.Four minutes, one second
Did a 911 delay contribute to the deaths of two D.C. residents in a fire?
T
WO MONTHS ago, California offered what
one senior state official described as an
“olive branch” t o the Trump administration.
In the fight over how strict government
fuel-efficiency standards should be, the state struck
a deal with several automakers that would give
them more flexibility and time to make their fleets
use less fuel and propose lower emissions. This
should have prompted the Tr ump administration,
which has been seeking to loosen the standards, to
negotiate a deal with the state and carmakers on
uniform national efficiency norms. Instead, the
Trump Environmental Protection Agency and
Transportation Department are expected to slap
away California’s olive branch at a Thursday news
conference. Hardly anyone would gain from such a
pigheaded move.
The fight stems from a quirk in the Clean Air Act
that allows California to set its own auto-efficiency
rules under a federal waiver. Other states can then
adopt California’s rules as their own. Many have
done so, and this bloc of states adds up to more than
a third of the U.S. auto market. Ye t the Tr ump
administration wants far weaker rules, and it does
not want California to spoil its deregulatory effort.
For their part, carmakers are terrified that they will
face strong efficiency standards in some states and
not others; they want the clarity of a single, national
program. But instead of forging a deal with
California, the Tr ump administration has reported-
ly decided it will try to revoke California’s waiver to
regulate on its own, an unprecedented move that
the state will challenge in court.
The state has a good legal case, but the battle
could take years, and the fact that the question of
whether a state’s waiver can be revoked has never
been tested adds some uncertainty to the outcome.
The bigger point is that all this time, effort and
rancor are unnecessary: Why wage such a battle
simply to increase fuel waste and pollution?
The administration has offered various rationales
for its insistence on rolling back standards that the
Obama administration and California had previous-
ly established, which would have increased averagecar and light truck fuel efficiency to 51.4 miles per
gallon by 2025. For example: Though consumers
would save money over time on gasoline purchases,
higher initial sticker prices might deter them from
buying newer and better cars, which could leave
more old clunkers on the road.
These arguments are not wrong so much as they
miss the point. Auto-efficiency standards might not
be the best strategy for cutting emissions and fuel
waste from the transportation sector — a higher gas
tax or a carbon tax would be better. But, at the
moment, efficiency rules are the legal way to do so.
And the ones the Obama administration andCalifornia established w ould undoubtedly help: The
experts at the Rhodium Group determined last year
that the Trump administration’s push to wipe away
auto-efficiency standards would result in the na-
tional fleet reaching only 38 mpg. The result would
be higher oil consumption on the order of 221,000 to
644,000 barrels of oil per day by 2030 — and
28 million to 83 million metric tons more carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere. Drivers would not really
benefit, because they would end up paying billions
more in gasoline costs.
The Tr ump administration should abandon its
destructive course and compromise.A wrong turn
on fuel e≠iciency
Tr ump officials should compromise
with California, not challenge it.ABCDE
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JOY ROBINS ........................................................................................... Client SolutionsThe Washington Post
1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 (202) 334-6000The Sept. 13 front-page article “A bishop’s lavish
life at church expense” was a fine bit of investiga-
tive journalism that brought to light the details of
the millions spent by West V irginia Bishop Michael
J. Bransfield on private jets, limousines, jewelry,
ritzy hotels, pricey home renovations and other
luxuries. But it buried possibly the most important
sentence in the next-to-last column on an inside
page: “A s a tax-exempt charity, the church is
prohibited from spending on luxuries or services
that unduly benefit an individual.” That is the bit
that relates to the common good and to those of us
who are not part of the Roman Catholic
Church. I’m glad Mr. Bransfield’s successor ex-
presses the intent to recover funds used for
personal benefit, but how about the taxpayers? By
not holding tax-exempt organizations accountable,
we are essentially subsidizing this sort of behavior.
Marian Lapp, ArlingtonThe bishop’s subsidized lifestyle
Two articles in the Sept. 13 paper spoke to the
world’s greatest threat besides politics: the over-
whelming use of fossil fuels. Reed Hundt’s Friday
Opinion essay, “Firms need to cooperate to fight
climate change,” favored allowing automakers to
cooperate on increasing fuel efficiency, a laudable
goal, but with limited benefit. Of greater impact is
the Trump administration’s insanity in seeking to
open up the entire coastal plain of the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration
[“Interior Dept. seeks to lease all of coastal plain,”
news]. The last thing our children and grandchil-
dren need is more drilling, more r oads in wilderness
area, more ships and pipelines bringing fossil fuel to
countries that already use too much, and more
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, where it will
remain for hundreds of years.
Safer and far less dangerous are the third- and
fourth-generation nuclear power plants that are
already available to provide clean power with far
less potential damage to the environment. Sweden,
Finland and France have used nuclear power to
become largely electric. We can, too, but it will take
an administration that recognizes scientific and
engineering expertise and that is not beholden to
coal, oil and gas interests.
Robert Gerwin, BethesdaIn recent years, I feel I’ve been living in the
surreal world of a Salvador Dalí painting —
especially his famous melting watches. Time to
address climate change has been melting between
our fingers, with potentially existential consequenc-
es of this challenge if not addressed in meaningful
ways.
The Sept. 14 f ront-page article “Poll: Climate fears
growing” provided a glimmer of hope that the
critical first steps in mitigating or adapting to the
increasing havoc of climate change — public ac-
knowledgment o f the threat and a call to arms — are
being taken. Earlier clarion calls, including the
report from the United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change and nations’ anemic
voluntary targets as part of the Paris c limate accord,
registered too faintly. T here was a dispiriting shrug.
It was someone else’s problem. Meanwhile, temper-
atures rise, sea levels rise, and violent weather
events rise.
That “a strong majority of Americans — about
8 in 10 — say that human activity is fueling climate
change” l ays down a new marker for broad recogni-
tion of calamitous outcomes of human inertia on
this matter and could spur creative thinking around
plausible remedies. Just maybe we can indeed head
off Earth’s sixth mass extinction.
Keith Tidman, BethesdaIt is most curious that the majority surveyed in
the United States are taking climate change serious-
ly, yet the solution is generally to add $2 or $10 a
month to our electric bill or to tax corporations that
burn fossil fuels. I do not see a ny e ffort to reduce our
personal use by sacrificing our fine vehicles, our
travel, comforts and recreation. We seem to view
any curtailment of our use as individuals as too
minor to be worthy of the effort; besides, we have
the money. So far, the solution seems to be, let the
other guy make the sacrifice.
I suspect most of us could easily reduce our
consumption by reducing some of our comforts and
our waste. Meanwhile, we dump tons of methane
into the atmosphere while harvesting oil and gas
because it is not cost-effective to capture it. We b urn
wood or gas in our outdoor fireplaces while
drinking warm wine to enjoy ourselves. The pickups
seem to get bigger and more luxurious.
I assume at s ome point we will analyze the issues,
the ethics and the finances and take action, but
we’re not quite there yet.
Mike Thompson, HollywoodWaking up to warming
The Supreme Court decision that allows the
Trump administration to apply stringent asylum
standards at the southern border may get high
marks for law school polemics, but it gives the
White House a green light on increasing the
misery of those seeking entry to this country
[“Court allows denial of asylum at southern
border,” front page, Sept. 12]. The disconnect
between its ivory-tower exercise in interpreting
the law in this instance and the inhumanity that
goes against decades of immigration policy and
the reputation of this country as a haven for those
in need are a staggering commentary and incon-
sistent with the intent of our founding documents.
The “Contemplation of Justice” statue outside
the court building represents impartiality and
balance in achieving swift justice. Is this latest
decision truly pursuing justice in the way we
understand the American sense of justice, whether
the individual is or isn’t a citizen? I think not.
Raymond Coleman, PotomacNot justice
EDITORIALSTOM TOLESLife is better if you try to get along.
CORRECTIONThe Sept. 18 editorial “The death of Purdue
Pharma” misstated the consequences for the states
that have objected to the proposed settlement of
lawsuits against the OxyContin-maker. Funds from
the settlement, if a judge approves it, will go t o every
plaintiff — not just the states that have not objected.
If the judge rejects the settlement, all plaintiffs will
seek alternatives, whether through litigation or
settlement, on an equal footing.UPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws