Madam, - There is something depressingly familiar about Dermot Meleady's Orwellian use of the words "inconveniences" and "irritations" to dismiss the unrelenting misery imposed by the separation barrier on the Palestinian people.
Media representations of this conflict abound with these distortions, and their accumulated influence helps perpetuate the injustices that they so recklessly minimise. An "inconvenience" or an "irritation" would appropriately refer to something like a 10-minute delay at a train station, not having your livelihood destroyed by bulldozers or being forced to queue for hours every day in humiliating conditions. - Yours, etc,
LIAM QUAIDE, Summerhill Road, Sandycove, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Recent letters either approving or criticising Israel's "security barrier" or "apartheid wall", however interesting in themselves, are largely redundant.
The structure in question was declared illegal by a majority decision of the International Court of Justice, the world´s highest judicial instance, in July 2004. Its existence is a crime, and international support for its continued construction is a crime. - Yours, etc,
RAYMOND DEANE, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Dame Street, Dublin 2.