Madam, - Rory Miller and Alan Shatter list many examples of man's recent inhumanity, savagery, and baseness (Opinion & Analysis, August 15th). They ask why it is only Israel's actions that are "constantly debated and challenged". They "just can't figure it out".
I suggest it is because in all the examples mentioned there is no debate, but instead widespread consensus - I am not aware, for example, of any prominent Irish politicians trying to justify the actions of Russia in Chechnya.
The vast majority of Irish people support Israel's right to exist and their right to self-defence.
Condemnation of Israel's actions should not then be consistently interpreted as an attack on those fundamentals.
Instead, they are an expression of people's anger at the events themselves and at those in the national newspapers and on the airwaves trying to justify the indefensible. - Yours, etc,
Cllr JIM O'LEARY, Parkvale, Dundrum, Dublin 14.
Madam, - Henry Guterman (August 16th) correctly points out that the Lebanese government was too weak to prevent Hizbullah from forming "a state within a state" in southern Lebanon. But he conveniently ignores the reasons for the undoubted weakness of the Lebanese government.
It might have something to do with Israel's aggressive interference in Lebanese politics for over two decades. Hizbullah did not exist before Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982: it emerged in the 1980s as a militant resistance movement to Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Hizbullah secured control of southern Lebanon in 2000 after a prolonged guerrilla war against Israel. Mr Guterman describes Hizbullah as an Iranian satellite: it is in fact a creation of Israeli policy in Lebanon.
Hizbullah certainly fired the first shots in the present conflict. But Israel's response was brutal, overwhelming and profoundly counter-productive. The Islamic movement has been greatly strengthened as a result of Israel's military action. The reality is that no Lebanese government can now confront Hizbullah without triggering another civil war.
Mr Guterman claims that "the death toll would have been many thousands" if Israel's bombing had not tried to minimise civilian casualties. This suggests that the Lebanese people should be grateful to Israel for not killing even more civilians. As your correspondent Lara Marlowe illustrates (Opinion and Analysis, August 15th), the Israeli armed forces obliterated city blocks and whole villages, showing absolute indifference to the loss of civilian life.
Collective punishment of the Lebanese people was the real hallmark of Israel's military action. - Yours, etc,
JOHN WALSH, Dunshaughlin, Co Meath.
Madam - Michael Mulcahy TD (August 16th) is disingenuous in criticising Alan Shatter for omitting to mention "Israel's failure to revert to its 1967 borders." The primary UN Security Council decision on this matter, Resolution 242, states that the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East "should include the application of both the following principles:
Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force".
Israel has already withdrawn from territories belonging to those neighbouring states which have accepted the second of these requirements. Furthermore, it has consistently maintained its willingness to make additional withdrawals, in exchange for fulfilment of the basic principle that any state has the right to live in peace, free from threats or acts of force. However, it is clear that not all of Israel's neighbours in the region are willing to acknowledge this fundamental right. Sadly, the continued lack of recognition of Israel's right to exist was a key factor behind the latest dreadful conflict in the Middle East - Yours, etc,
DAVID M ABRAHAMSON, Trinity College, Dublin 2.
Madam, - I am astonished at the verbosity of some of your contributors to the Letters page on the Middle East crisis.
Am I alone in being rendered almost speechless by sorrow? - Yours, etc,
ROSEMARY O'SULLIVAN, Tipper Road, Naas, Co Kildare.