Madam, - Monty Ross ( April 1st) claims that "the State of Israel was not created by Zionists, but by 1000 years of European Christian persecution and emulated by Islam".
It is a known fact that the Golden Age of world Jewry was under Islamic rule where they were allowed and encouraged to practise their religion. Later the Jews did suffer somewhat under the Ottoman Empire, which had strayed a lot from the true teachings of Islam. But even then, while being exterminated in Europe, they fled to and found refuge in the Muslim state where they were treated much more humanely, by comparison.
Yes, the Jews have suffered throughout history at the hands of European anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust. Islam had nothing to do with this. Neither did the inhabitants of Palestine. Two wrongs don't make a right. - Yours, etc.,
FAHAD ANSARI, Renmore Road, Renmore, Galway.