Sir, - Congratulations to Vincent Browne for highlighting (April 18th) the gross injustice in what he rightly calls "the murderous assault by Israel on Lebanon" and the Government's totally inadequate response to it.
His article was written even before the horrific massacre at Qana. On that day the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, made what can only be described as a muted response to the atrocity and a very restrained criticism of Israel, guaranteed to be heard only by Irish listeners. Since that awful day, we continue to read of horrors perpetrated against the civilan population in Lebanon.
In The Irish Times (April 25th) we read that Israeli bomb attacks are preventing the delivery of humanitarian relief in southern Lebanon and that the road linking Lebanon's second largest city, Sidon with Beirut (and used only by civilians) is being systematically and regularly bombed. All of which must surely make a farce of the Israeli claim that they are only defending themselves against terrorism.
Several writers to your pages have already made the analogy with the Irish situation. We can be fairly sure what response web would expect from the international community if the unthinkable happened and Britain were to invade the area south of the border to protect itself "legitimately" from continued incursions by the IRA against its citizens. The sorry but logical conclusion one comes to in the case of world response to Israeli aggression against Lebanon is that Arab lives must be of significantly less value than western European or US lives. - Yours, etc.,
Philipsburg Avenue,
Dublin 3.