DAVID SMITH,
Sir, I think Dr Frank Fine (January 18th) misses the point when he claims that Lebanon has never been a true democracy. It has certainly never been an ideal of democratic government, but it was at least comparable to the Israeli model of democracy.
As far as I know, it was never the case that 20 per cent of the citizens of Lebanon where legally prohibited from living in 90 per cent of the country, as is the case with the Arab citizens of Israel.
Nor does the law of Lebanon explicitly ban any political party which calls for equality between Jew and Arab, as the Basic Law of the Israeli Knesset does. And this, of course, does not even take into account the situation of the Palestinians, who were dispossessed by Israel and have lived three generations as refugees in their own land.
In truth, Israel is a democracy only in the way apartheid South Africa was. If it isn't a democracy for everyone, then it isn't a democracy at all. - Yours, etc.,
DAVID SMITH, Harmonstown Road, Dublin 5.