RAYMOND DEANE,
Sir, - Kevin Myers and I are in agreement that the horrific succession of suicide attacks into which the intifada has degenerated cannot be countenanced (An Irishman's Diary, April 5th).
But while he explains them with a succession of orientalist platitudes ("the relationship between the Muslim fundamentalist and God, in which life is an impediment to be disposed of as swiftly as possible"), I see them as the expression of an unfathomable despair born of the sense of being abandoned by the rest of humanity.
His rhetorical question - "What deal is possible with an organisation whose members are queuing up to blow themselves and as many innocent people as possible to kingdom come?" - sidesteps the fact that most suicide bombings used to be perpetrated by members of Hamas, an extremist organisation originally set up by Israel with the ominously successful aim of splitting the Palestinian resistance. The fact that such a split now seems to have "healed" is a consequence of the ongoing failure of the international community to make Israel comply with UN resolutions 242 and 338.
No more than the Irish people, or the Americans, or the Israelis, do the Palestinians see "life as an impediment to be disposed of as quickly as possible"; it is the illegal Israeli occupation, with US backing and the passive complicity of the rest of the world, that has made their life unbearable. _- Yours, etc.,
RAYMOND DEANE,
Dun Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.