Sir, – Israel’s expressed intention in its continuing assault on Gaza is to destroy Hamas and thereby to make Israel safe. With its horrific killing and maiming of civilians and its wanton destruction of buildings and infrastructure, it seems extraordinary that Israel doesn’t realise that its actions will only increase hatred among its Arab neighbours.
Hamas, defined by most as a terrorist organisation, may ultimately be defeated, but a similar anti-Israel organization is almost bound to emerge as a result of Israel’s current actions. Terrorists are not born; they are made by intolerable imposed conditions. – Yours, etc,
SWITHUN GOODBODY,
Cappaghglass,
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Co Cork.
Sir, – Those who call for a boycott of Israeli universities do themselves and the academy a disservice (Letters, November 4th). At the very least, a university’s mission is to develop critical thinking, examine issues in the round, and question selective and highly partisan interpretations.
Maintaining lines of communication with universities round the word, and that includes China where the Uighur Muslim minority suffers extreme persecution, or Myanmar where another Muslim minority faces genocide, forms part of that commitment to fundamental values that can be traced back to the Enlightenment. It would be a pity to see our institutions of higher education reduced and devalued to the extent that ideologues of left or right selectively focus on some conflicts only and in the process simplify and distort understandings of highly complex problems.
What is happening in Israel-Palestine is a tragedy. It will need well-informed, creative minds to help fashion a future that accommodates both Israelis and Palestinians.
Boycotts and partisan claims are unlikely to prove helpful along that tortuous pathway. – Yours, etc,
LIAM KENNEDY,
Emeritus Professor of History,
Queen’s University
Belfast.
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole writes that it is “shameless inconsistency” to condemn Russia’s attacks on Ukraine but not Israel’s war on Hamas (Opinion, & Analysis, November 7th).
Ukraine did not massacre Russian civilians, does not have a policy to destroy the Russian Federation and has not spent the last several years firing rockets at civilian targets there. There is no reasonable comparison between the two conflicts.
Hamas bears responsibility for both the massacre in Israel and for the suffering of the people of Gaza.
Its attack on Israel was a recognised act of war and its use of civilian infrastructure to hide its combatants constitutes a breach of humanitarian law. Israeli strikes on civilian areas used as bases by Hamas, while resulting in tragic loss of innocent civilian lives, are not breaches of humanitarian law – that lies with the combatants using those civilians as human shields. Is Israel to be denied the right to strike back at Hamas because it hides behind its own people (and Hamas has explicitly said it is willing to sacrifice the civilian population of Gaza to destroy the Jewish state)?
Hamas could end the destruction of Gaza by withdrawing its fighters but it chooses instead to sacrifice its own people. – Yours, etc,
DONAL McGRATH,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.