Sir, – This is not the time to condone or condemn Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank. There is now a gulf so wide between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, a distance so far from the hopeful days of peace talks, and positions so entrenched, that a meeting of minds is well nigh impossible.
There is injustice, inequality and suffering for sure on the Palestinian side of the border.
However, while the unspeakable rage and cruelty perpetrated by Hamas over the weekend may be explained away by many of your contributors, let us be clear here: it can in no way be excused. It is fuelled by hatred for Israel rather than care for its own.
Hamas is not looking to benefit its people. It does nothing to improve their lot. It is a terrorist organisation which is so embedded in its society that it is difficult to isolate it from the innocent population in whose midst it operates. Daniel K Sullivan (Letters, October 10th) is correct when he writes, “giving organisations like Hamas, who are more interested in dominating their own people than securing a homeland and prosperous future, a blank cheque of support is not about social justice or equality”.
Hamas have now made things much worse for the Palestinians. – Yours, etc,
HEATHER ABRAHAMSON,
Clonskeagh,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – Some of the correspondents to this page (Letters, October 11th) seem to confuse justification with contributing factors when criticising any analysis which in some way tries to find reason behind the barbaric attack by Hamas terrorists on innocent Israeli civilians. Nobody can justify these attacks but it is legitimate to understand factors which have contributed to it.
As mentioned elsewhere in this paper (Kathy Sheridan, Opinion & Analysis, October 11th), Hamas was initially actively encouraged by the Israeli government as a means of dividing Palestinian political nationalism. It soon morphed into the fascist organisation it is today, a similar strategic error by the US led to the Taliban.
We are now left with extremist politics on both sides, but with one side having huge political and military dominance over the other.
Any hope of peace in the region will only come about when this situation changes and a recognition that mutual co-existence, with respect for international law, is the only way forward.
It is hard to see where the leadership on both sides for this approach will come.
Binyamin Netanyahu, and his cabinet of hate, have embedded a culture of ultra-nationalism within Israeli society and dehumanised the Palestinian population.
The Palestinians, for their part, have been brutalised and left without hope, allowing Hamas terrorists to fill the political vacuum in Gaza, and are left with a corrupt rump of the PLO in the West Bank. There are moderate voices in both Palestine and Israel who recognise the right to self-determination and the need for mutual co-existence; these need to be supported by US and EU leaders in a meaningful way. It may seem hopeless now but international political will is needed now more than ever. The tenets of international law that arose from the human catastrophe of the Holocaust must be the benchmark and respected by all. – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
Blackrock,
Cork.