Your Letters
M Green gives one example from the 10,000 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners held by Israel (Letters, July 29). This is someone who murdered a family more than 20 years ago. The Israelis have been killing families daily over the past three weeks and you don't avoid moral responsibility because you kill at a distance with sophisticated weapons. I doubt if the one surviving girl of the family on the beach in Gaza killed last month when an Israeli warship fired on civilians cared about whether her family were killed with a gun or a precision rocket.
Ariel Sharon, the previous prime minister, was accused, even by the official Israeli Kahan Commission, of responsibility for war crimes in the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon in 1982 and it said he should never hold public office again. If you want to know why Hizbollah exists, look at the history.
Many in the Israeli military are trigger-happy. There were two separate cases in English courts this year where the coroners concluded that these two people had been unlawfully killed by Israeli troops.
If they do that to outside observers, just imagine what they do to the Palestinians.
I make these points not to engage in a competitive exchange of atrocity accounts but to establish that Israel does not have the moral high ground. As long as it is encouraged to believe that it has, then it will not face its own record and the perspective from the other side. The only solution that has a chance of lasting is a viable Palestinian state, broadly within the pre-1967 boundaries and with its own free access to the rest of the world. Also, as we recognised in Ireland, the release of prisoners to diminish the bitterness.
Those who are supportive of Israel should be questioning whether US policy is in that country's interests. America is pouring weapons in and pushing the Israelis to fight a proxy war as a warning to Iran because after Iraq and Afghanistan it is hard for Bush to engage in any more military initiatives directly. To have united the different factions in Lebanon and greatly increased the support for Hizbollah throughout the Middle East can hardly be in Israel's long-term interests.
Isobel Lindsay, 9 Knocklea Place, Biggar.
I read the letters page on Saturday and was disappointed. The stushie about whether bombs were transported through Prestwick, which filled most of the page, is a distraction. At the moment Scotland is a part of Tony's fiefdom of England and nobody listens to our bleats. The big decisions are made in Westminster and until we decide to change that position we will continue to be paid no attention.
Of course the wars in Lebanon and Gaza are orchestrated in Washington and London as part of the "War Against Terror". If the Israelis were deprived of backing from the US they would collapse almost immediately and so can be regarded as the cat's paw in the whole affair. It seems likely that the intention is to pound Lebanon until Syria and Iran become embroiled and, as I wrote soon after the war began, big brother can then act in an attempt to mop up the next oil-producing state.
D S Blackwood, 1 Douglas Drive East, Helensburgh.
During his latest news conference, after his meeting with Tony Blair on the issue of the US-sponsored Israeli aggression and barbarity in Lebanon, George Bush said: "Our goal is to achieve lasting peace." It appears that Dubya has not learned any lessons from history or his own misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Force and brutality have never achieved and can never achieve lasting peace. Only justice, fair play and respect for each other's rights through dialogue between the contestants can lead to lasting peace. Hence, without justice and fair play for the Palestinians, neither Bush and Blair nor any other tyrant can bring lasting peace in the Middle East.
Bashir Maan, 8 Riverview Gardens, Glasgow.
M Green gives one example from the 10,000 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners held by Israel (Letters, July 29). This is someone who murdered a family more than 20 years ago. The Israelis have been killing families daily over the past three weeks and you don't avoid moral responsibility because you kill at a distance with sophisticated weapons. I doubt if the one surviving girl of the family on the beach in Gaza killed last month when an Israeli warship fired on civilians cared about whether her family were killed with a gun or a precision rocket.
Ariel Sharon, the previous prime minister, was accused, even by the official Israeli Kahan Commission, of responsibility for war crimes in the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon in 1982 and it said he should never hold public office again. If you want to know why Hizbollah exists, look at the history.
Many in the Israeli military are trigger-happy. There were two separate cases in English courts this year where the coroners concluded that these two people had been unlawfully killed by Israeli troops.
If they do that to outside observers, just imagine what they do to the Palestinians.
I make these points not to engage in a competitive exchange of atrocity accounts but to establish that Israel does not have the moral high ground. As long as it is encouraged to believe that it has, then it will not face its own record and the perspective from the other side. The only solution that has a chance of lasting is a viable Palestinian state, broadly within the pre-1967 boundaries and with its own free access to the rest of the world. Also, as we recognised in Ireland, the release of prisoners to diminish the bitterness.
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http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/66882.html
