Madam, - I must once again question your editorial balance in covering the Arab/Israeli conflict.
Firstly, you publish every bit of tittle tattle from "Pre-selling pieces of the security wall" (April 3rd) to the "human shield" incident (April 24th). I am not saying that these things did not happen, but they hardly rate as major issues in a conflict zone. (Compare the current revelations about the behaviour of US and British troops in Iraq.)
The net effect of this constant finger-wagging focus on the Israelis is to serve the purposes of those who wish to paint a civilised democracy as an evil monster.
You then publish Fionnuala D'Arcy's letter (May 1st) in which she says, "I have never been as angered or disturbed by a photograph as I was by the one of the young Palestinian boy strapped to the bonnet of an Israeli jeep". Such ridiculous over-statement suggests that Ms D'Arcy has either led a very sheltered life or was predisposed to condemn Israelis anyway. I have my own suspicions about the answer since she rather nimbly leaps from the bonnet of the jeep to a "murderous regime".
What on earth are we talking about here? Ms D'Arcy can go to Tel Aviv any time she likes and safely parade up and down outside the Knesset or anywhere else in the land with placards and slogans of her choice condemning Israel, its leaders or its people. She might then like to test out a similar exercise in Gaza or Ramallah mentioning Arafat, Hamas, suicide bombers etc.
I suggest, Madam, that there is a problem here and that your correspondents and editorial policy needs more than a little re-balancing so that you do not add to the already unreasonable attitudes towards a people whom, if you really knew them, you would find to be civilised, reasonable and more than a little flexible. - Yours, etc.,
PAT O'SULLIVAN, Knocknacurra, Bandon, Co Cork.
Madam, - The world is rightly appalled by reports and images of Iraqi prisoners abused by the American and British occupiers (April 30 and 31). However, for many years Amnesty International and the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem have been reporting and condemning the torture of Palestinian prisoners detained with or without trial in Israel's hellish prisons. Indeed between 1987 and 1999 Israel had the distinction of being the only state with pretensions to democratic status actually to have legalised such torture.
Clearly torture only arouses an international outcry if photographic evidence makes it into our newspapers; once again, Israel escapes with impunity. - Yours, etc.,
RAYMOND DEANE, Chairman, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Dublin 1.