Sir, – Melissa Teodorini's claims (December 7th) that the forced displacement of the Bedouin people from the Negev by Israel are benevolent or even "good" are totally at odds with the facts.
If this was the case, why would so many Bedouin have protested the “Prawer Plan”? Indeed, the European Parliament has condemned the plan and demanded its withdrawal. So too has the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the UN Office for Human Rights, and Human Rights Watch. Philip Luther, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme described it as “A blatant example of Israel’s discriminatory policies towards its Palestinian minority” and called for it to be dropped.
While people all over the world, including in Ireland, held solidarity demonstrations on November 30th in protest at this dispossession, they did so safely. Meanwhile, the thousands of Palestinians demonstrating against the plan were met with arrest, water cannons and violence by the forces of the Israeli state, on both sides of the Green Line. Israeli democracy? Only for some citizens. – Yours, etc,
ZOE LAWLOR,
Dooradoyle Park,
Limerick.