Madam, - When the Israeli army has pulverised Gaza and killed many more Palestinian civilians, when the rockets cease firing, will all those who have written in support of Israel then demand that it lifts its siege and stop its collective punishment of the Palestinian people? Will they demand an end to Israel's apartheid policies in the West Bank? Will they call on Israel to respect international and humanitarian law, to stop the ongoing settlement expansion, dismantle the illegal separation wall and halt the theft of Palestinian land?
No, of course they won't. Their denunciation of violence extends only to Palestinian violence; their calls for the rule of law applies only to the occupied people. There is nothing that Israel will do that these "friends of Israel" won't support with self-righteous anger, indignation and charges of anti-Semitism against those who disagree.
Pity the Palestinians; but pity the Israeli Jewish citizens too, whose country represents to the world today what apartheid South Africa represented for much of the last century. Pity them their "friends" abroad. - Is mise,
TOMAS McBRIDE,"
