Madam, - So, as threatened, "Israel has begun reducing fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip under new sanctions to punish the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave for rocket fire on Israeli towns." (29th October). This constitutes collective punishment and hence is a violation of international humanitarian law.
An analysis by Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff in the Israeli daily Ha'aretzclaimed that "the real aim of this effort is twofold: to attempt a new form of 'escalation'... before Israel embarks on a major military operation [ in Gaza]...".
In the same issue Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni is quoted as opining privately "that Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat".
So Israel is publicly pretending Iran poses an existential threat in order to provoke a US war and simultaneously violating international humanitarian law in Gaza to provoke attacks it will exploit.
But I forgot: these cynical and devious stratagems are legitimate, because "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East". - Yours, etc,
RAYMOND DEANE, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Dame Street, Dublin 2