Madam, - No newspaper would entertain a letter promoting Holocaust denial, yet it seems that Nakbah denial is acceptable. True, the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews, is not comparable to the Nakbah, the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians. However both Holocaust denial and Nakbah denial have the same aim - to deny a racist crime in the past so that present-day crimes may be excused.
In his wildly inaccurate description of the 1948 war, Dermot Meleady (January 22nd) fails to acknowledge that every serious historian of the past 20 years - whether Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe or Nur Masalha - has accepted that Plan Dalet (or Plan D) was an order for ethnic cleansing.
He fails to acknowledge that this plan was actually adopted in March 1948, two months before any Arab army declared war on Israel, and that Zionist forces had ethnically cleansed over 300,000 Palestinians before this war started.
He repeats the farcical stories about Haifa's mayor begging Arabs to stay, once sufficient numbers had been cleansed, yet fails to mention cities such as Lyddah and Ramleh whose entire population were deported en masse. Most seriously, he fails to mention why Israel did not, and still does not, allow any of these ethnically cleansed people back to their own land in defiance of international law and human rights.
It is now 60 years since the Nakbah. In addition to the misery
of exile and the remembrance of that trauma, must Palestinians also
contend with well-educated voices in the West telling them they
imagined it all? - Yours, etc,
DAVID LANDY,
St Thomas Road,
Dublin 8.
Madam, - You have had many serious letters on the Palestinian problem, mostly dwelling on the past. The future is what matters.
The focus of Muslim dislike of the West is the plight of the Palestinians. From any point of view it has to be settled; that implies an imposed solution. The West created the State of Israel by dispossessing the Palestinians. To ensure the continuation and the establishment of a genuine, rather than cosmetic Palestinian state, all segments of the latter's diaspora must be involved.
This means Hamas must be included. To ignore Hamas is simply diplomatic stupidity.
Look at the problem from their point of view. They set up as a political party and in astonishingly open elections, won by a landslide. As the Zionist tail wags the Western dog, and as most diplomats have a strong herd instinct, we ignored this result.
This says to the Arab world three things. First, that we are not committed seriously to democracy.
Second, that we regard elections as valid only if our preferred victor emerges.
Third, that as we profit from trade with Israel, it is in our interest to let the Palestinian economy rot.
The parallels between the IRA and Hamas, and the resolution of the Northern problem are instructive.
The bitter fact we all ignore is that Hamas is the only
democratically elected Arab government. We ignore it to our shame.
- Yours, etc,
JOHNNY COUCHMAN,
Johnstown House,
Carlow.