Madam, - As I am sure Raymond Deane, Chair of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, is well aware (October 5th), Israel's incursion into Gaza is aimed at eliminating those who are launching rocket attacks at civilian targets within Israel. The Palestinian leadership is, as usual, making no serious effort to curtail these.
The pattern is depressingly familiar. Palestinians militants, hiding shamefully behind their own civilians, target Israeli civilians. Israel targets the perpetrators and in the process also kills civilian bystanders. Israel gets all the blame. Apologists for those who consistently target civilians consider the correct Israeli response is, well, to do nothing.
And, by the way, Israel does not "purport" to be democratic. It is democratic. Name another state in the Middle East with any democratic legitimacy whatsoever, from universal suffrage to a free press to an independent supreme court. Or name one with even the freedom to establish bodies which are openly anti-government, or pro-gay, or atheist. Again, Israel is the only such country. - Yours, etc.,
TONY ALLWRIGHT,
Killiney,
Co Dublin.