DAVID SMITH,
Sir, - Sean Gannon (May 2nd)seems on the face of it to make a closely argued case for Israel's right to wear a martyr's crown, but there seemed to me to be something rather familiar about the whole thing, and sure enough, a quick search on the net revealed that his argument bore a suspicious similarity to one posted by Hadassah, the women's Zionist organization of America. Far be it from me to call Zionists self-serving or pettyfogging apologists for state oppression, but I did think it rather a hot one for such an argument to be based on the fact that resolutions of the UN General Assembly are not binding in international law when Resolution 181, the one which partitioned Palestine in the first place, was itself a resolution of the General Assembly.
Presumably, if Mr Gannon's logic is followed to its conclusion, the very existence of the state of Israel has no legal basis. I will, however, refrain from following that logic since the last person who did, UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte (who, as head of the Swedish Red Cross, had risked his life to save thousands of Jews from the Nazis) ended up dead courtesy of the Stern Gang.
Nor will I repeat the Count's second mistake of pointing out that the partition was only meant to be provisional in order to see if such a solution would be workable, or his third mistake (the real biggie) of proposing that, as part of an overall solution, the Palestinian refugees should be allowed to return to their homes or be compensated by Israel for all that had been stolen from them, although I will state my outrage at the blasted cheek of the Israelis to have spent fifty years condemning the Arab nations for refusing to resettle the Palestinians. Or, in other words, refusing to clean up Israel's mess.
I quote the above merely to illustrate a point. In the fog of international legalese it is often easy to lose sight of the basic issue at the heart of the conflict. An indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from their home and their land by invaders. When Stalin did as much to the Crimea Tartars he was castigated by the West. When Apartheid South Africa did it, it was boycotted. Yet the state of Israel not only did it and continues to do it, but it actually gets three billion dollars per annum from the Americans to do it. Which international lawyer do the Palestinians see about that? - Yours, etc.,
DAVID SMITH,
Harmonstown Road,
Artane,
Dublin.
Sir, - In his letter (April 30th) Mr Paul Kenny, responding to my previous letter, asserts that making a connection between condemnation of Israel and anti-Semitism is "silly abuse...to try to stifle the proper moral outrage of concerned people." Mr Kenny either fails to grasp my point or deliberately chooses to misrepresent it.
I have seen the "proper moral outrage" of those who cannot bear to see Israel take action to defend its citizens. But I ask myself where was their outrage when suicidal homicide bombers in pizzerias and discotheques murdered Jews? Why were they mute when a five-year-old Jewish child, asleep in her bed, was shot seventeen times by cold-blooded murderers? What sort of morality renders them silent when a family of five unarmed Jews, including a baby in a pram, was ruthlessly slaughtered as they left a synagogue in Jerusalem? Forgive my scepticism, but Mr Kenny and his like would have a lot more credibility if their proper moral outrage did not appear to be selectively reserved for the criticism of Jews defending themselves! This sort of discriminatory morality smacks of anti-Semitism. - Yours, etc.,
BRIAN SMITH,
Montreal,
Canada.