Madam, - The views expressed by Paul Gillespie in last Saturday's issue on the much-discussed subject of the Middle East are most certainly debatable. I would like to highlight two points which he has made.
His contention that highly educated people are the most likely to be anti-Israel but the least likely to be anti- Semitic shows a lack of knowledge of European history and the sponsors of anti- Semitism for at least a thousand years. It is to accuse popes, cardinals, bishops, prime ministers and royalty and the elite of of being uneducated. I recommend that he read The Unholy War by David Kertzer and then repeat that statement.
He finds that the Zionist claim that the Jewish people are entitled to a State of their own to be anachronistic. He supports the idea of a binational State which he feels would allow reconciliation. I find it hard to believe that an obviously highly educated individual does not understand that the State of Israel was not created by Zionists, but by a thousand years of European Christian persecution and emulated by Islam. He probably thinks that the Zionists were trying to save the Jewish religion. What they are trying to save are the physical lives of Jewish people and for the first time in their history of the last two thousand years to learn to defend themselves.
He is suggesting that the Israelis should put their trust in people who have been trying to massacre them for the last hundred years and are still loudly proclaiming their intention to continue the attempt. I will agree that it is tragic that any group of people should have to enclose themselves behind barriers to survive but if Mr Gillespie is looking for the cause he should put down his binoculars and look instead in the mirror. - Yours, etc.,
MONTY ROSS, Bushy Park House, Templeogue Road, Dublin 6w.