Madam, - "Road map threatened by Israeli deaths" - thus runs the headline over a report in your paper today (June 9th) on the killing of four Israeli soldiers manning an illegal checkpoint.
Ever since the Knesset's notional acceptance of the "road map", the Israeli Occupying Forces have operated a policy of "business as usual". This entails enforcing illegal curfews, illegally demolishing houses, and operating these barbarous checkpoints at which Palestinians are routinely humiliated, all in the interests of maintaining an occupation that is itself illegal. Not to mention the two resistance fighters shot dead on June 5th, as mentioned in passing by your reporter.
So why have we not been reading such headlines as "Road map threatened by Israeli intransigence"? Clearly because double standards are as pervasive in the reporting of this conflict as they are in its perpetuation by western powers unwilling to enforce UN resolutions when they are breached by an ally. - Yours, etc.,
RAYMOND DEANE, Chairman, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Dame Street, Dublin 2.
Madam, - Martin Gleeson claim that Israeli settlements in the territories are illegal under international law is incorrect (June 9th).
The last legal allocation of the areas in question was under the terms of the League of Nations mandate which, in incorporating virtually unchanged the provisions of the Balfour Declaration, gives to Jews clear rights of settlement there.
Nor are they, as is often claimed, illegal according to the Fourth Geneva Convention; Israel's presence in the territories is not an occupation under the terms so its provisions do not apply to Israel's presence there. Finally, the Oslo Agreements did not contain a demand for a settlement freeze; this was first proposed in George Mitchell's report of 2001.
Furthermore, Mr. Gleeson is wrong to treat the settlement project as the monolithic enterprise of a monolithic Israeli state. Different settlements were built under different governments for different reasons. Construction in the Oslo period alone demonstrates this. It continued under Rabin because he did not want to alienate the right in the early phases of the new peace process and under Netanyahu for political/ideological reasons.
Barak pledged not to build any new settlements and allowed building in existing ones because he believed that there was no point antagonising the right when the courts would force him to honour contracts signed in his predecessor's time anyway and because he expected to be signing a final agreement under which the settlements in question either would or would not be annexed into Israel; natural growth would not prejudice this outcome.
Finally, Mr Gleeson's attack on Mr Sharon is ill-judged. Sharon has said that he is beginning the process towards a viable Palestinian state by removing a number of outposts, not ending it.
He and his political intimates have, as recently as last weekend, made it quite clear that established populated settlements will have to go to facilitate territorial contiguity in the new state. - Yours etc,
SEAN GANNON, Irish Friends of Israel, Highfield Lawn, Bishopstown, Cork.