Sir, - The Israeli ambassador tells us (The Irish Times, July 31st) that Israel has "made a moral choice not to dominate another people". What a cynical claim. Since its foundation the Israeli state has forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and brought in bulldozers to level over 400 Palestinian towns and villages to the ground to ensure the Palestinians had no homes to return to. No compensation was given.
Israeli leaders lose no opportunity to highlight Palestinian flaws and wrongs - and they are many. Prime Minister Netanyahu, in the aftermath of the horrific carnage last Wednesday, accused Yasser Arafat of doing "damn all" to check violence. He said: "I insist on a real peace and it begins with Arafat's battle against terrorism." Does it begin here? Can decades of injustice to Palestinians be so conveniently ignored? Oppression, daily petty harrassment and humiliation are the breeding ground for violence. Did not Moses murder an Egyptian for ill-treating a fellow Jew? (Exodus 2: 11-12.) How can Israelis hope for peace and security if they do not address underlying injustices in the current situation?
The Israeli state is about to celebrate the jubilee year of its foundation. In the Jewish tradition a jubilee year was one in which anyone who had lost land or property in the previous 50 years could get it back. No one, not even the Palestinians, expects that Israel will hand back all confiscated property. But is it too much to hope that there will at least be a change of heart and attitude? That is the fervent wish of at least one orthodox Jew whom I heard say recently in Jerusalem: "The challenge now is to consecrate life rather than to desecrate it with injustice and violence - and that is being done at the moment on all sides. On the map there is space enough for us all. But is there space enough in our hearts?" - Yours, etc.,
John Byrne,
Old Court Road, Dublin 16.