Sir, – Regarding your condescending and trite editorial ("Netanyahu overplays his hand", March 5th) denigrating Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech to the US Congress, just ask yourselves this – what if he proves to be right? How will your editorial read then? A more balanced view is worthy of your newspaper.
Moreover, history teaches us that ignoring states run by religious ideologists is a risky delusion indeed. – Yours, etc,
JOHN TURNER,
Dublin 18.
Sir, – Anybody who thinks that Mr Netanyahu’s recent address to the US Congress has any credibility and is not related to the imminent Israeli elections should remember that in 1996, before the Israeli elections of that year, Mr Netanyahu told a US congressional committee that Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.
In 2002, shortly before the January 2003 Israeli elections, he said that the removal of Saddam Hussein would produce stability in the Middle East. – Yours, etc,
PAUL ARTHERTON,
Belfast.
Sir, – Did your readers, like me, wonder this week why about 400 members of the US Congress stood up every three minutes, like wooden automatons, to applaud the prime minister of a small foreign coalition as he brazenly instructed the elected president of the United States of America, who represents 308 million Americans, how to conduct US foreign policy?
The answer is remarkably simple. Perhaps a majority of members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate owe their seats to the power of the Israel lobby that pays millions of dollars to ensure that they are elected – provided they agree to support indiscriminately the agenda of the government of Israel, through its lobby in Washington.
This parody of the democratic process is carried out overtly on the premise that the Israel lobby, funded primarily by funds from casino gambling, is now too powerful to be opposed.
Of those who stood in Congress this week and woodenly applauded Binyamin Netanyahu’s harangue, few would admit to have any genuine sympathy for the agenda of the Israeli government or its lobby in America – but they have little choice but to demonstrate support if they want to continue their political careers. – Yours, etc,
ANTHONY
BELLCHAMBERS,
London.
Sir, – Your editorial correctly states that Binyamin Netanyahu no longer trusts US president Barack Obama’s assurance that “we’ve got Israel’s back”.
Sadly no responsible leader can trust Mr Obama on strategic matters.
In August 2012, he declared that any use of chemical weapons by Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was a “red line” that would result in “enormous consequences” if crossed. Weeks later Assad killed 1,400 people with chemical weapons and he took no action. Leon Panetta, Mr Obama’s then secretary of defence, has admitted that the failure to use military force against Assad damaged US credibility. – Yours, etc,
KARL MARTIN,
Bayside,
Dublin 13.