Sir, - Finian Cunningham's World View (April 21st), with its naive meshing of geography, nationalism and political conflict, bordered on the offensive.
Not once does he acknowledge Israel's right to exist. It is this internationally recognised right which entitles it to act to protect itself against the hostility of the Arab world.
Over half a century has passed, since Israel's 1948 assumption of statehood and it has been defending itself since. And after witnessing the impotence of the UN, the EU and NATO during the massacres and rape of the Muslim men, women and children of Bosnia one is forced to draw only one conclusion. That is that Israel can rely on no one but itself, as other wise it would be very quickly disappear. Self preservation must come before observing the niceties that we in our safe haven of Western Europe would seek to impose on the world we so recently controlled.
Concerning Northern Ireland, I pose him the following questions: Close on two millennia passed between the Jewish diaspora and the creation of the Jewish Nation State. Eight hundred years passed between the invitation made to the Normans to invade the island of Irish tribes and the creation of an Irish nation state. Four hundred years have passed since the Scottish (themselves the descendants of an earlier Irish colonisation of Northern Britain) were foisted onto the North of Ireland and the creation of the quasi-nation state there. Europeans and Africans have been in the Americas for about five centuries. Should they feel compelled to leave? Should those of European extraction leave Australia? What about the Chinese in Tibet and the Russians in Chechnya? Can you please tell me how long must pass before a squatter gains legal entitlement to their lands? - Yours, etc.,
Paul Bowler, Garville Avenue, Rathgar, Dublin 6.