Sir, – I can’t claim to know whether “occupied” or “disputed” is the right word to describe certain pieces of dusty land in a Middle East desert. To read some of the letters from Palestinian apologists about Israel, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there used to be a state called Palestine, then Israel just decided to invade and has been periodically occupying more and more of it.
Yet isn’t it a fact that the Palestinians already have a state and that it’s called Jordan and it’s interesting there is no pressure from the apologists to make Jordan and Egypt, where most Palestinians live, provide full citizenship to those people and allow them to avail of the rights and responsibility that entails, even if they ultimately wish to live somewhere else?
Is it not also a fact that the reason Israel occupies disputed territory is because each time it has been invaded by Arab armies, it has, to the disappointment of so many on the left, decisively beaten those armies and in those defeats it has left a presence in certain pieces of land to create a buffer zone again further attacks on Israel?
Or have I missed the part where having invaded and occupied Israel, the same Arab countries, who call for death to the Jews, would then live in peace with them? Yours, etc,
DESMOND FitzGERALD,
Canary Wharf,
London
Sir, – I assume that Dermot Meleady (Letters, April 12th) speaks not just on behalf of the Embassy of Israel, Dublin but for the Israeli government. If so, then Irish citizens should be concerned – not just for a peaceful future in the Middle East – but for the continuation of Israel as a functioning democracy.
I have recently read two books which have given me a much wider and deeper insight into the emergence of present-day Israel and its political relationship with the wider world – with the USA in particular. Both are written by committed Jews and are, in the best sense, pro-Israel. One is by an Israeli-born citizen and journalist, Ari Shavit. My Promised Land , published in 2013, is as its jacket states "an authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the state of Israel".
The other is The Crisis of Zionism by Peter Beinart, a US journalist and writer. This book details the recent history of the Jewish community in the USA and investigates the close Israel-US political and diplomatic relationship, particularly over the period of office of recent presidents.
On my reading, neither author nor book could be remotely called anti-Israel; however, neither shirks from calling Israel’s presence on and control of the West Bank “an occupation”.
So, could I appeal to Mr Meleady to add to his reading list and, in addition to rereading the biblical texts referred to by Damien Flinter in his letter (April 14th) that he take the time to closely read both books mentioned above. They may change his mind. In any event, both are very well written and engaging as each has a strong personal story to tell.
Le gach dea-mhéin,
PAUL E DONNELLY,
Kingsland Parade,
South Circular Road,
Dublin 8
Sir, – I am amazed how much interest Irish people, and in particular the Irish media, have in the conflict between Palestinians and Israel.
After all, this is a chronic dispute involving a land that is 30 per cent of Ireland’s size and has a total population of 11 million. According to Amnesty International, 27 Palestinians and seven Israelis were killed in 2013 due to violence. This is nothing to compared to the civil war in Syria, where 150.000 people have been killed. Or Iraq, where multiple bombings claimed the lives of 8,000 people in 2013.
Nor does the media seem to be very interested in executions in Iran, where at least 357 people were put to death last year, mostly dissidents. Though a Christian country, Ireland does not seem to be interested either n the plight of Christians in Muslim countries and Christian refugees from Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and Gaza.
But perhaps the interest of Ireland in the Palestinian conflict with Israel serves as a mirror for Ireland itself. Three hundred and fifty years of violence between Catholics and Protestants, 150 years between Arabs and Jews.
The barrier which in Belfast separates Catholic and Protestant areas is similar to the barrier which separates Palestinians from Israel following suicide bombings in which Israeli civilians were victims.
An anti-Semitic rant is published in The Irish Times and the Irish Jewish community accepts the abuse in the same way that it did during the Limerick boycott in 1904. Nothing has changed. Yours, etc,
I BARR MD,
Dakota Circle,
Bloomfield,
Michigan
Sir, – Those outraged by the Israeli presence in the districts of Hebron and Nablus, alias “the West Bank” of the Jordan, would do well to remember that the conflict would never have existed had the Arab parties accepted UN policy that both Jewish and Arab states succeed British (Western) Palestine; if the Arab parties had not junked UN Resolution 181; if the Arab parties had cut their losses with a peace treaty before 1967; if the Arab parties had accepted the 1967 Israeli offer to return to the green line for a peace treaty turning it into a legal frontier and ending the conflict and its claims.
The Palestine lobby should remember that the first Arab reaction to the Oslo attempt to build a peace two decades ago was to default on the commitment to amend their charters to recognise Israel’s right to exist as self-determined, that is to be “as Jewish as England is English” in the words of Chaim Weizmann to the Pell Commission – which allows a lot of civil equality for minorities. Then there were the Hamas bus bombs, now the rockets. They gave the green light to the build-now nationalists. Yours, etc,
FRANK ADAM.
Hartley Avenue,
Prestwich M25 0AT
Greater Manchester
Sir, – Great satire from Damien Flinter (“American support for Israel”, Letters, April 14th) More please. Yours, etc,
MELVYN WILCOX,
Dundanion Road,
Ballintemple, Cork