Madam, - Dermot Meleady maintains (August 6th) that the term "terror" has no place in descriptions of Israel. Unfortunately, Israel has used massive military force to cow civilian populations on numerous occasions: Operation Grapes of Wrath, the massive bombardment of South Lebanon in 1996, resulting in the massacre of 106 civilians in a UN compound at Qana, was a good example.
Mr Meleady's slight on B'Tselem is a disgrace. B'Tselem was founded in 1989 by Israeli academics, lawyers, journalists, and Knesset members. Mr Meleady says it "reviles the state". He does not mention that it is internationally acclaimed; that it won the 1989 Carter-Menil Human Rights Prize; that it routinely co-operates with the Knesset; that its board includes many distinguished Israeli academics; and that it is funded by Israeli and non-Israeli sources, including the New Israel Fund, the European Commission, the Ford Foundation, the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Mr Meleady maintains that no such human rights organisation could exist for more than "nano-seconds" in Israel's neighbouring states or in Gaza. He neglects to mention the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), which is based in Gaza; which won the 2002 Bruno Kreisky Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Area of Human Rights and the 1996 French Republic Award on Human Rights; and which is affiliated to the International Commission of Jurists (Geneva) and the International Federation for Human Rights in Paris.
He trots out the usual trite argument that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Unfortunately, this is not the case: Israel is better understood as an ethnocracy, because of the Law of Return, which prioritises the citizenship of Jews anywhere in the world over Palestinians in Israel, and because crucial elements of state activity have been subcontracted to organisations, such as the Jewish Agency, which serve only the interests of Jews.
Mr Meleady needs to do some homework.
- Yours, etc,
CONOR McCARTHY, De Vesci Court, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.