CHRISTOPHER
Sir, - I write to congratulate the Israeli Embassy's press officer in Dublin, Dr Noreen O'Carroll, for her courage and honesty displayed in her letter of July 26th. In it she expresses revulsion at the grossly disproportionate action of the Israeli army in using an F16 aircraft to drop a one-tonne bomb on an apartment block in a resident suburb of Gaza City.
This attack did indeed have the effect of killing Mr Salah Shehada, who is widely regarded as being the architect of the suicide bombing outrages in Israel. But it also had the effect of killing a large number of civilians, including nine children. This is inexcusable. I say this although I am a long-time friend and supporter of the state of Israel and continue to be so. However, I am also aware that, following the Sabra and Chatilla massacres, an Israeli judicial commission found Mr Ariel Sharon unfit to be defence minister. It is a mystery to me how he can then be fit to be prime minister.
I was in Israel both when he precipitated the present intifada by strutting around the Temple Mount and also when he was elected prime minister. During that election his slogan was "Ain Shalom Bli Bitacon" - "No peace without security". I said at that time to my Israeli friends that the truth would be "Ain Shalom Mi Sharon" - "No peace with Sharon". Sadly my words have turned out to be prophetic.
I salute Dr O'Carroll because in these difficult times it is all the more necessary for people like her - and indeed the young Irishman Mr O'Shea who assisted in the escape of some Afghan victims of Australian hospitality - to speak and act in the light of their consciences against oppressive and undemocratic forces. - Yours, etc.,
Senator DAVID NORRIS, Seanad Éireann, Dublin 2.
... ... * ... * ... * ... ...
Sir, - I must congratulate your paper and, above all, Dr Noreen O'Carroll for the courage shown in publishing her letter last Friday. I think that Dr O'Carroll has proved to be unique throughout the world as an employee of the Israeli government who is nonetheless prepared to say how much she loathed the shameful killing of the children in Gaza last week.
The world needs people of courage who are not afraid to stand up and be counted. - Yours, etc.,
CHRISTOPHER LEADBEATER, Hailey, Oxfordshire, England.
... ... * ... * ... * ... ...
Sir, - Cathal Rabbitte's letter of July 26th remarks that "Israeli military analysts get the best of everything. They have the finest equipment US tax dollars can buy."
Maybe Mr Rabbitte is unaware that the Palestinian Authority also receives billions of dollars in aid from US taxpayers, and further billions from EU taxpayers like myself. Yet their actions are held virtually unaccountable, despite documents having been found proving Yasser Arafat's complicity in the current campaign of terror and suicide bombing.
In fact, any serious criticism of his régime, such as President Bush's, is considered unreasonable.
Last week a bus was ambushed and eight Israelis were killed, including three generations of one family, and an unborn baby. In a suicide attack some months ago, the bomber deliberately approached a woman with a pram before detonating himself. In a recent raid on a Jewish settlement a pregnant woman was murdered. These are only a few of the atrocities committed against Israelis in recent months.
While this does not in any way justify the Israeli attack or Ariel Sharon's callous and irresponsible reaction, some balance in the media and political establishment's responses to events in the Middle East would be welcome. Not least, a call for the US and EU to investigate where their billions of aid to the Palestinian Authority are going, when many Palestinians now live on less than $2 a day and their children suffer from malnutrition, a plight which has considerably worsened since Yasser Arafat's PA took over governance of the disputed territories from Israel. - Yours, etc.,
NATALIE WYNN, Dublin 6W.