Sir, – The letter by Israel's deputy ambassador to Ireland, Orli Weitzman, perfectly sums up the utter frustration many Jews feel, both inside Israel and elsewhere, towards the current Israeli government mindset (March 29th).
It is entirely reasonable for a third country to decide to ban the goods produced from an area that is occupied illegally and deemed so under international law. It is rightly considered as the equivalent of receiving stolen goods.
She talks, in this misty-eyed manner, about the deep historical and religious link to Judea and Samaria for many Jews. She can call it what he likes but thousands of Palestinians happened to be living there for six centuries when the Israelis decided to claim the territory. By occupying parts of the West Bank and creating islets that are cut off from one another, Israel makes daily life for Palestinians living there a misery. It is a strategy with no possible justification or fair outcome.
Ms Weitzman’s proposition that Israel voluntarily left Gaza in 2005 in order to promote a Palestinian idyll is textbook revisionism. Ariel Sharon, who instigated the withdrawal, understood only too well that continued occupation of Gaza would lead to unacceptable casualties on the Israeli side. It was an act of military strategy not sudden munificence towards the Palestinians.
That Hamas fires rockets into Israel is disgraceful and counterproductive.
As someone with family in Israel and who wishes for it to thrive in peace with its neighbours, I despair at the current situation.
One can only hope that the forthcoming election in Israel will result in a change of regime that will also sweep away Hamas, politically.
Ms Weitzman’s voice represents the failure of 12 years of the Binyamin Netanyahu government’s increasingly theocratic tendencies. It belongs in the past. – Yours, etc,
OLIVER SEARS,
Dublin 2.