Madam, - In his great haste to repudiate Dara O'Sullivan's defence of Israel's right to security (August 3rd), Raymond Deane (August 4th) overlooks the historical evidence which clearly demonstrates that terrorism against Jews in the Middle East existed long before Israel's seizure of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.
For instance, there were terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians throughout the 1950s, most notoriously the March 1954 bus attack at Ma'aleh Akrabim (in which terrorists initially killed the driver before boarding the bus and shooting the passengers, one by one, murdering 11) and the grenade attack on the Shafrir synagogue two years later in which four children were killed. Similar attacks continued during the 1960s.
The fact that the terrorist groups the Palestine Liberation Front and the PLO were both founded before the "occupation", the former in 1959, the latter in 1964, with the express aim of obliterating pre-1967 Israel, also indicates which came first - "occupation" or terrorism.
This month's commemorations of the 75th anniversary of the 1929 pogrom in Hebron in which 67 Jews were massacred also highlights the fact that Arab terrorism existed even before the establishment of Israel in 1948.
It is as a defence against such acts of murderous violence that Israel is forced to implement security measures such as administrative detention, curfews and road-blocks (I remind Mr Deane that the use of physical pressure in interrogations was made illegal in Israel in 1999).
These are not the causes of terrorism, but their effects. When terrorism ends, so will they. - Yours, etc.,
SEÁN GANNON, Irish Friends of Israel, Charlotte Quay Dock, Dublin 4.