Madam, - I must agree with Cathal Rabbitte (December 1st) about the powerful role of television in the continuing fracas in the Middle East. I have seen videos of programmes on Arab television disseminating hatred against anybody who is not a follower of Islam with, of course, special mention of Jews. I have seen Yasser Arafat exhorting children as young as five to become martyrs. I have seen academics on Egyptian television telling viewers that Jews kill Christian children to drain their blood to make Matzos for Passover.
I am not aware if money donated by outsiders is used by the settlers in Gaza or the West Bank to build schoolrooms or medical centres but I do know that the millions of dollars donated by the EU and the Americans and the oil-rich Arab countries to Mr Arafat and his colleagues every month are not so used. After they have creamed off their share and paid their gangs of guerrillas there is little enough left for the general population.
I have no answer to Mr Rabbitte when he says that the display of the Shield of David is a sickening example of the hijacking of religion. I would suggest to him, however, that he examine the role of all other icons of religion and try to count the millions of humans who have been sacrificed in their name. He might find that the Shield of David comes out with very little stain for the past couple of thousand years. Might I be bold enough to suggest that the only people who turned the other cheek for the last couple of millennia were Jews. - Yours, etc.,
MONTY ROSS,
Loftus Square,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.
Madam, - Alan Shatter (November 26th) defended Israel's right to self-defence and implied that, uniquely among states, it is denied that right. This is not the case.
What world opinion condemns are the disproportionate and illegal methods Israel uses in the exercise of that legitimate right.
Also, in stating that it is "anti-Semitic to advocate that the Israel government should take no military action against those who use suicide bombers", he comes perilously close to suggesting that all Israeli military actions are justified and that any criticism of them is anti-Semitic.
In the West Bank and Gaza, the Israeli military machine is used to enforce the widespread theft of Palestinian lands and natural resources, to rip up farms and bulldoze homes, to shell and strafe civilian populations from helicopter gunships and tanks, to impose the harrowing conditions of collective imprisonment on a whole people, preventing access to workplaces, schools, hospitals, basic services.
Does Alan Shatter, like the Israeli government, justify these military actions in the name of security and self-defence? Does he consider it anti-Semitic to criticise them?
The conflation of the terms anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic is a tactic that is meant to, and does, intimidate people. It is most commonly used to deflect attention away from scrutiny of Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories and to stifle any honest debate of the complex issues at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. - Yours, etc.,
BERNADETTE GALLAGHER,
Leinster Road,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.