Missed opportunities

As someone who taught the Arab-Israeli Conflict to examination level for 25 years, I was shocked to read the distortions, half-truths and omissions in Mr Topping's recent letter 'Israel and Terror' (SA, Jun 2).

I studied it thoroughly, looking for references to Hamas' pledge of perpetual 'jihad' against Israel, their absolute refusal to negotiate with Israel, and the blatant antisemitism contained in Hamas' Covenant/Constitution.

I searched too, in vain, for the fact that Hamas run a 'pay-to-slay' system for their terrorists. Should one of their terrorists be imprisoned or killed carrying out an attack on Israel, their families will be generously remunerated.

Absent too, was the fact that Hamas fired the first of their 4000+ rockets at Israel first.

We live, thankfully, in a free country and it is good that people can support the causes of the Palestinians, who have been badly served for years by both their Arab neighbours and their own corrupt PLO/Terrorist leadership.

But please, base that support on factual realities and scholarship, not pernicious propaganda of the sort Mr Topping clearly prefers.

A state of Palestine has been on the negotiating table seven times since 1937. They have always refused it. Famously, in 2000, the Israelis offered Yasser Arafat most of Jerusalem, only for it to be rejected with his infamous statement: "There never was a Jewish Temple".

President Bill Clinton 'hit the roof' As Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban famously said, after another Israeli offer was rejected: "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."

They could do with a new government, but sadly, there have been no elections in Gaza since 2006. The Palestinians deserve much better.

Peter Hicks

Address supplied

It's all about keeping things in perspective

After a wet May, my birth month.The sun is shining again.

The British weather reminds me of human existence on our planet earth. Always changing. From birth to death. The joys of the gift of human life, the deaths and tragedies that we all go through in this dimension.

Nothing in our cosmic universe stays the same as time moves on. I went to the Isle of Wight many years ago with my now deceased Good Lady.

I bought a pendant necklace with a polished bone. It was eighty million years old. A bone from a dinosaur. I keep it on the dressing table next to my bed. It helps me to keep things in perspective every morning when I wake up.

Dog and cat lovers as I have been all my life. Know the pain of losing a part of the family.I would trust my pets more than ninety per cent of the human race. I speak from seventy eight years of experience on that one. When we lose a family pet we say never again, the heartache. Then as I did ten months ago, get another one.

My springer spaniel Cher has kept me going through this Covid nightmare.

I suspect many Advert readers would join me on these pages with similar thoughts.

It would be a change from political differences of opinion, with all due respect to their contributions.

Bill Williams

Merlin Way

Covingham

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