Letters - Lack of empathy with the Palestinians' plight

[malaise]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/22/lack-of-empathy-with-palestinians-plight
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• If the British had bombed and mortared houses in Catholic districts of Northern Ireland to kill hundreds of innocent supporters of Sinn Féin and their children, and tried to justify it on the basis that it was trying to stop IRA terrorism, there would have been a world outcry, not least from the US. But because Arabs have no constituency in the west, and people who criticise Israel are deemed to be antisemites, all we get is mealy-mouthed "on the one hand, on the other hand" editorial hand-wringing, even from the Guardian, whose writers are surely more aware of the iniquities of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians than more rightwing papers.

It is time for the world to unite against Israel, a rogue state whose actions in the Middle East over the past seven decades have caused suffering and injustice over a longer period than any other so-called democratic state.
Karl Sabbagh
Author, Palestine: A Personal History

 In 1948, aged 12 in Pretoria, I joined Habonim, a Zionist youth organisation modelled on the scouts. A year or so later, a Zionist speaker came to address us. He told us that the Zionist aim was a Jewish home covering the whole of Palestine and South Lebanon up to the Litani river and also Mount Hermon. "What about the people living there now?" I asked. They would leave, he replied, just as the Arabs had left Israel. Even the Boers hadn't gone so far as to expel the Natives from South Africa, I said, and left Habonim. Seen in that light, Israeli policy of invasion and annexation has had a consistent flow, interrupted only by defeat by Hezbollah in South Lebanon. Hilik Bar's description of a "thirst for Israeli blood" to outsiders looks much more like a thirst for Palestinian blood for the offence of being there at all. Israel could have a ceasefire by agreeing to lift its illegal blockade of Gaza. Do not those who suffer such aggression have a right to resist? Where is the line between resistance and terrorism?
Michael Sterne
Sarisbury Green, Hampshire

[cpwm17]

1. The second letter is correct

Israel ignored Hamas' proposed cease-fire and ten year truce. Israel prefers to maintain illegal siege permanently: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/deafening-silence-proposal.html

The main demands of this proposal revolve around lifting the Israeli siege in Gaza through the opening of its borders with Israel to commerce and people, the establishment of an international seaport and airport under U.N. supervision, the expansion of the permitted fishing zone in the Gaza sea to 10 kilometers, and the revitalization of Gaza industrial zone. None of these demands is new. The United Nations among others have repeatedly demanded the lifting of the siege, which is illegal under international law, as a necessary condition to end the dire humanitarian situation in the Strip. The facilitation of movement of goods and people between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip had already been stipulated in the Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) signed between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 2005. Even the construction of a port and the possibility of an airport in Gaza had already been stipulated in the AMA, though the actual implementation never followed. The requested increase of the permitted fishing zone is less than what envisaged in the 1994 Oslo Agreements and it was already part of the 2012 ceasefire understanding. Unhindered fishermen’s access to the sea, without fear of being shot or arrested and having boats and nets confiscated by Israeli patrols is essential to the 3000 Gaza fishermen struggling to survive today by fishing in a limited area which is overfished and heavily polluted. The revitalization of the Gaza industrial zone, which has progressively been dismantled since the 2005 disengagement and by continuous military operations, was already considered a crucial Palestinian interest at the time of the 2005 Disengagement.

[malaise]

2. That's why I selected it