Israel must free the Palestinians

THE analogy which the current genocide in the Gaza Strip brings to my mind is the Warsaw Ghetto and the consequent uprising in 1944. This will be close to Jewish hearts, as they led the citizens of Warsaw to do the only thing which would confront the occupying country – fight them.

To all intents and purposes, Gaza has been a ghetto since 1967, with different levels of oppression being levied by the Jewish State, Egypt/Jordan and the USA; as the rest of the world has been distracted by events elsewhere. So, how would the rest of us view Hamas, if we lived in the Gaza Strip? Would we take the increasing harassment, or would we do the only thing that will bring the world to take notice of our level of existence and resist? Hamas exists because the rest of the world has shown that they don’t care about the Palestinians and the Fatah movement was so ineffectual.

So what are you going to do, Israel? Continue to slaughter innocent children and women? This won’t bring peace and gives any terrorist organisation a ready source of recruits. Remember the financial help the USA used to give to the IRA, the Afghani Mujahedeen and the Sunnis didn’t bring peace. You need to give people their land and their homes back and allow them to be free, then the terrorist parasites that feed off them will die out.

From: Mrs Betty Farrar, Oxford Road, Undercliffe, Bradford.

WHAT a fantastic column from Bill Carmichael (The Yorkshire Post, August 15) about what George Galloway said about banning Israelis from Leeds and Bradford. I wish people would ban him from Bradford and send him back to Scotland, or as Bill Carmichael says, send him on a one-way ticket to Beirut or Damascus.

Can you imagine the Israelis’ feelings when they are hearing poison spouting from his mouth like that? They must be sick of the Palestinians firing rockets into Israel. Jacou Prasch, one of my favourite preachers, a Jewish man, has sent George Galloway a very gracious letter.

We had six lovely Jewish lads in Bradford last week and they were holding a flag (Star of David). They were greeted well by the people of Bradford. They have a totally different spirit altogether.

From: Phyllis Capstick, Hellifield, Skipton, North Yorks.

WE were told that Saddam Hussein was brutal when it came to dealing with his own people.

As a reason to invade his country, we were also told of the weapons of mass destruction targeted on us, ready to be implemented in 45 seconds.

If the latter had been true, surely those weapons would have been implemented as we invaded?

That aside, we now have a situation in Iraq where maybe 
we can understand who and what he was dealing with, and how much more brutal someone is going to have to be, in order to deal with it.

Before he was put to death, Saddam Hussein said that he did what he did for Iraq. George W Bush and Tony Blair should hang their heads in shame (what chance?), and be put on trial for war crimes.

The situation now in Iraq is of their making, but I wouldn’t trust them to deal with it.

Yet Tony Blair has done what he set out to do, and that was to make plenty of money. Money, and the need to make it at all costs, is the root of all evil. So it is said.

There is something to be said for living simply, so that others can simply live. I believe in God, not so in religion. With money, as with other things, there is a difference between I need and I want.

From: Robert Reynolds, West Bank, Batley.

There can be nothing more sickening than the image of a child beheaded from being the “wrong” religion. Yet these are the crimes now being committed on behalf of the Islamic faith in Iraq and Syria. This isn’t about religion.

The invention of the wheel is said to have been the start of the great leap forward of the human race. Yet I think two other occurrences are more important.

First, in Greece, the city of Athens decided on the vote to choose a ruler. Before that, the city regularly descended into bloodshed until the strongest ruled.

Second, religious toleration. Instead of murdering one another because you believed in a different God, your faith became a right of worship protected by the State.

The majority, sick of terror and murder, chose to live in peace.

The Ottoman Turk Sunni Muslims dominated the Middle East, creating a powerful Muslim Empire.

This was threatened by the growth of the Shia sect. The Sunni Muslim rulers declared the Shias a heretic faith, trying to preserve their power.

In Britain we got wise to the mad minority. It’s why Christians and Muslims here live in peace.

Power, greed, hatred – the fault line of humanity.

Two kinds 
of inflation

From: John O’Mullane, Hull.

The proposed rail fare increases are to be inflation plus one per cent – that is the RPI rate, currently at 2.5 per cent. The general public rate of inflation is measured by the CPI – currently 1.6 per cent – so pensions and benefits are geared to a “lower” inflation rate.

MPs’ pensions are still linked to the RPI. We are all in it together!