Madam, - Since April 2001, more than 3,700 rockets have been fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs. And 2008 was the worst year, with 1,200 rockets fired at Israel.
The death toll from these attacks is not so easy to find on the Israeli government website, but the Israel Project (an independent organisation sympathetic to Israel) puts the death toll within Israel from all rocket and mortar attacks between 2001 and June 2008 at 16.
The latest Israeli bombardment of Gaza was prompted by a ceasefire breach in which 120 rockets have been fired into Israel since the end of November, killing one Israeli citizen.
In the past few days, Israel has killed more than 300 people in its bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
The disproportionate nature of this response - 300 deaths in a few days, compared with fewer than 20 in eight years - is shocking, but not surprising given Israel's record.
How would the world have responded if British forces had bombarded West Belfast in 1971 and killed over 300 people in response to IRA violence against them? So long as Israel can carry out these excessive acts of aggression without sanction from the international community, nothing will change for the unfortunate 400,000 Palestinians who call Gaza their home. The hatred will endure and embed itself more deeply, guaranteeing a future of violence, bloodshed and misery. - Yours, etc,
Madam, - It is sad at the best of times to see the plight of the Palestinian people of Gaza, cooped up in huge numbers as virtual prisoners, many of them in camps. But now, only days after Pope Benedict's timely call for peace in the Middle East and as we look forward to the World Day of Peace, the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces have transformed an inhuman situation into an atrocity.
The state massacre committed this Christmas in Gaza by a member of the United Nations is cruel collective punishment of civilians, reminiscent of the Sabra and Shatila incidents which brought such shame on Israel in 1982. Because it is so clearly disproportionate in scale and ferocity to any possible action by the Palestinians, it must also be in contravention of international law.
The Israelis get a lot of mileage from their self-serving claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. If an election campaign in Israel is to be won or lost by the deployment of immense military force against a weak, poor civilian population, perhaps the world might be a more peaceful place without this supposed democracy. - Yours, etc,
Madam, — The Israeli bombing of Hamas bases in Gaza is the inevitable and justified reaction to nearly eight years of escalating rocket and mortar attacks on Israel's southern communities by Hamas and its partner terrorist groups.
That bombardment of Israel was mostly launched from within civilian areas in Gaza. This constitutes a double crime against humanity that received very little attention from the world's media.
Only when Israel finally hits back do the media and political leaders of Europe wake up, and then the air is thick with cries of "disproportionate response".
At a rally of 150,000 Gazans held on December 14th to celebrate its 21st birthday, Hamas put its own inhumanity on show by using an actor to mock the plight of the abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. The soldier has now been in captivity for 920 days without any communication allowed with his family, in violation of all Geneva Convention norms on the treatment of prisoners. Again, the world's media have paid little attention.
On Christmas Eve, Hamas again indulged in mockery, this time of Israel itself for its seeming "state of confusion" over how to react to its latest spate of missile attacks. That day it fired over 60 rockets and mortars, and boasted of its ability to expand the range of its missiles to reach more distant Israeli cities.
Sure enough, on Sunday it managed to hit Ashdod, 25 miles from Gaza, with long-range Iranian-supplied rockets. This means that half-a-million Israeli citizens, Jewish and Arab, are now within rocket range of the terrorists.
The situation in Ireland would be equivalent if the population of the Border counties from Louth to Donegal were being rocketed by a terrorist group that had taken over parts of Ulster across the Border.
No government anywhere could tolerate such a state of affairs.
It is obvious that Israel had to act to defend its people. Instead of vilifying Israel for its action, our representatives should take an unequivocal stand against the terrorism of Hamas, which can bring only further misery to the Palestinian people. - Yours, etc,
Madam, - Permit me to express outrage at the inhuman attacks by Israel against Gaza that have resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives and injuries to many hundreds more.
Also please permit me to add my condemnation of the lies emanating from Messrs Olmert, Barak, Ms Levine and other Israeli spokespersons, including the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland, concerning the origin of, and the alleged necessity for, this murderous assault even while they continue to escalate it.
I commend the forthright condemnation of Israel's action by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mícheál Martin. It would be even better if, with the full backing of all Opposition parties, the Government shut down the Israeli Embassy because of this atrocity. - Yours, etc,