Madam, - Dermot Meleady (Letters, July 18th) argues that the Israeli government is, in its military measures, merely concerned with protecting its citizens against "violent enemies sworn to their and its destruction". In contrast, he represents Palestinian motives by describing in detail the grotesque killing of Israeli civilians in three separate incidents.
Mr Meleady's interpretation of the Israel/Palestine conflict in these terms is cartoonishly biased: a simplistic battle of virtue against evil. His use of ad hominem rhetoric such as "toxic hate-emissions" to dismiss critiques of Israeli policy is an attempt to trump reason with hysteria and serves to distract from the overarching context of oppression and expansionism that has characterised the Occupation.
The most objective resource of facts relating to the Israel/Palestine situation is the website of B'Tselem, a human rights information centre set up in 1989 by a group of Israeli intellectuals. It reports on the nerve-grinding trauma and tedium of life under occupation with statistics on issues such as house demolitions, the torture of Palestinian detainees and the blatant use of the Separation Barrier to illegally confiscate land. It also details the sufferings of Israeli citizens as a consequence of Palestinian terrorism.
A proportionate consideration of these facts should form the basis of debate on this conflict, not side-taking bluster with gross omissions. - Yours, etc.,
LIAM QUAIDE,
Mayor St.,
Dublin 1