Madam, - US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice insists that peace in the Middle East "has to be based on enduring principles". The most enduring principle of all is justice. It is the enduring presence of injustice - the initial expropriation of lands, the sequestration of water rights, the imposition of settlements, the harassment of an entire population - that is at the base of the current crisis and that will continue to foment further crises until Israel is forced to accept the legitimacy of the Palestinian case.
As yet, Israel shows no sign of any such understanding. Its treatment of the Palestinian people displays a contempt and a disrespect born, perhaps, of its wish - or need - to close its eyes and mind to any awareness that might curtail its own actions. It is behaviour typical of the bully and the tyrant everywhere.
The West's acceptance of such actions is the single most important reason for the ongoing disharmony between Islam and itself. Why should the West, and the US in particular, engage in such risky action? What strategic purpose does it serve the US to engender enemies from West Africa to Indonesia? It is folly of the highest order, a folly engineered by the powerful American Jewish lobby, a folly putting at risk world peace and the secure provision of energy supplies.
Maybe it is time "Condi" applied her mind to these enduring issues. - Yours, etc,
JOSEPH McDONNELL, Woodlawn Park, Churchtown, Dublin 14.
Madam, - I note that the Syrian government has relaxed border controls to allow fleeing Lebanese people to escape across the border. What at first seems like a wonderful humanitarian gesture would not be necessary if Syria, along with Iran, had not supplied Hizbullah with arms in the first place.
On both sides of this conflict, as always, there are both instigators and perpetrators. -Yours, etc,
KAREN LUBY, Bray, Co Wicklow.
Madam, - Tom Cooney (July 18th) suggests that Lebanon is responsible for the acts of Hizbullah, and consequently is the legitimate object of Israeli attack, because it has materially contributed to Hizbullah's activities in failing to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 1559 (which obliged it to disarm the organisation). It has further violated what he puts forward as a nascent obligation to "counter international terrorism".
While Mr Cooney's point of view is legitimate, it is merely a point of view.
It is possible that a general obligation to counter international terrorism is in development in international law, but it is arguably a little early to conclude that it is firmly established or that it is implicated in the Israeli self-defence response. The action taken by Israel, if it is proportionate (which at this point must be in some doubt), falls squarely within traditional principles governing self-defence and does not require legal innovation.
The precedent of the action taken against Afghanistan in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th, 2001 suggests simply that self-defence permits the attacked state (state A) to respond to a non-state actor within another (state B) in circumstances where state B is unable or unwilling to take action against the non-state actor and this is by no means a new principle within international law.
Secondly, leaving aside the very controversial doctrines of implied authorisation and material breach (which featured so prominently in the argument leading up to the Iraq war), Security Council resolutions are not necessarily authority for anything outside the immediate context within which they have been made. - Yours, etc,
PATRICK O'BRIEN, Chairman, Irish Society of International Law, c/o The Law Library, The Four Courts, Dublin 7.
Madam, - I am amazed at the shallowness of the analysis of most politicians and media regarding the current war between Israel and Hizbullah. It is not a war between Israel and Lebanon: Israel has no dispute with the Lebanese government or people, and wants to see a stable and peaceful Lebanon to its north. But once Israel lost eight soldiers killed and two kidnapped in the unprovoked Hizbullah raid across the internationally recognised border on July 12th, it had to strike back. In doing so it naturally hit the headquarters of Hizbullah in the Shia neighbourhood of south Beirut. It also struck airports, bridges and roads throughout Lebanon to prevent re-supply of Hizbullah, and telecommunciations facilities to stop Hizbullah broadcasting instructions to its fighters. Any sensible military force would have to carry out these raids.
In the thousands of sorties that the IAF has flown in the past two weeks, barely 400 people have been killed. That is an incredibly small number and testimony to the accuracy of the IDF's targeting! If they wanted to cause civilian casualties, as some suggest, then by now there would be thousands and they wouldn't be dropping warning flyers on the population. Also, the targets of the IDF are not in the Christian, Sunni Muslim or Druse areas of Lebanon. These are essentially untouched by the fighting.
In the final analysis you have a choice. Either you choose the Shia Muslim extremist terrorists of Hizbullah or the democratic government of Israel. Who would you prefer to win? It may soon affect you where you live. - Yours, etc,
JACK COHEN, Netanya, Israel.
A Chara, - Motti Ruimy (July 26th) calls the Irish-British, Hizbullah-Israeli comparisons "spurious and faintly ludicrous". He then uses differences between the stated agendas of Hizbullah and the IRA to support his argument.
The fact that Hizbullah questions Israel's right to existence is insignificant next to its total incapacity of ever achieving its goal.
Israel claims to have the right to defend itself, but it does not have the right to exact the utterly disproportionate devastation it has unleashed on the Lebanese people with complete impunity and claim this is a measured and justified response to the kidnapping of two of its soldiers.
It is in this context that the Irish-British, Hizbullah-Israeli comparisons have been made, not the historically complex situation as a whole.
Perhaps I could offer another comparison that might not be so embarrassing and intellectually crass: that of David and Goliath. - Is mise,
DAVID O'SULLIVAN, Chapelizod, Dublin 20.