Editor, the Gauntlet,
[Re: “Escalation not the answer,” editorial, July 27, 2006]
I found your article “Escalation not the answer” in the course of a Google search and was pleasantly surprised. Don’t misinterpret this as a patronising statement, please! The fact is that I expect North American media–including those linked to academic institutions–to follow uncritically the Zionist line which, alas, is also that of the government of Canada.
Indeed the deaths of Canadian citizens recently in Lebanon have done nothing to mitigate your prime minister’s shamefully unconditional support for the state of Israel.
My one qualification would be your phrase “trying to trace the blame can go on ad infinitum, right back to the creation of the state of Israel.” This is by no means an infinite regression! To grit one’s teeth and concede that the foundation of that state was a crime perpetrated by western colonialism in order to expiate its own guilt towards the Jews–on the backs of the Palestinians–is not necessarily to deny Israel’s right to go on existing, nor can it justly be construed as anti-Semitism. However, the nature of the state must change radically, as must the West’s unconditional backing for it. Only by rectifying the wrong done to the Palestinians can the ground be laid for the peaceful cohabitation of Jews, Muslims, Christians, and people of any or no faith in the Middle East.
Dr. Raymond Deane,
executive member of the Ireland/Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Dublin, Ireland