Sir, - On the day that two suicide bombers perpetrated horrific carnage in Jerusalem, Mr Zvi Gabay, the Israeli ambassador to Ireland, was given space in The Irish Times to reply to a John V. Whitbeck. Almost everything that Mr Gabay asserts is questionable. The provocation which Israel gives the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Lebanese by the illegal occupation of their lands and the illegal settlements which they construct on them are in direct contravention of UN resolutions. But Mr Gabay still states that "Israel is irreversibly committed to peace".
The festering sore of the thousands of Palestinians displaced from their homes by Israel is unlikely to convince Irish people that Mr Gabay is sincere. Ethnic cleansing is what has happened and whenever one hears on the news programmes any Israeli commentator speaking of Palestinians, then apartheid is the other word that comes to mind.
In response to the attack by two frustrated and angry young men who were prepared to sacrifice their own lives in a most horrible atrocity to bring the attention of the rest of the world to the continuing injustice being endured by thousands of innocent Palestinians, Israel adds to the provocation by witholding taxes from the Palestinian Authority that are legally theirs.
This behaviour feeds the frustrations of extremists.
President Clinton said that he could not see the link between the illegal settlements and the bombing. How depressing. - Yours, etc.
John A. Cullinane,
Ballincollig, Cork.