Mixed views on Israel’s Gaza strikes

From: John M Collins, Sandhill Oval, Leeds.

LORD Prescott has launched a violent attack on Israel in relation to Gaza without taking the least trouble to ascertain the facts (The Yorkshire Post, July 28).

He wildly accuses Israel of “grossly indiscriminate” attacks. He ignores the mounting evidence that many of the deaths and injuries are caused by Hamas itself. He probably does not know that one in six of all the rockets fired against Israeli civilians actually fall in Gaza. We saw on television today tragic scenes of children having been hit, as they said, “by a rocket”. Israel say they never fired that rocket and they may well be right.

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In this tragic war, it is inevitable that mistakes are made. But the difference is that Israel tries not to injure civilians and in particular children: Hamas is in the business of trying to harm civilians, including children.

A week ago, Israel set up a field hospital for the treatment of the injured of Gaza. What other nation does that? Israel wants peace, but not at any price. And who, with an ounce of common sense, would blame her?

From: Simon Lewis, Navigation Walk, Leeds.

THE views of the not so esteemed former MP John Prescott on the current situation in Gaza are repugnant, offensive and wrong.

His comparison of modern day Israel to Nazi Germany is stupendously inaccurate. The simple fact is there would have been no deaths whatsoever if Hamas had ceased its unprovoked and unjustified rocket attacks from Gaza on civilian areas of Israel.

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No other country in the world employs more sophisticated and intricate means of avoiding civilian casualties than Israel.

It employs unparallelled scanning and surveillance systems and every form of notificatory medium to warn civilians to leave prior to any strike. Multiple missions are aborted if civilians remain in a target area.

The sad and appalling fact is that the civilian casualties are largely attributable to the sickening policy of Hamas of forcing men, women and children to remain in harm’s way, effectively “wrapped around” their precious missiles.

Hamas is a formally designated and globally recognised terrorist organisation that contains in its mission statement the objective of destroying “The Jewish State”.

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Condemnation of Israel by the likes of Mr Prescott plays into the hands of Hamas, it validates their criminal use of human shields and it will encourage other jihadist groups to do the same.

From: Simon Barber, Digley Road, Holmbridge, Holmfirth.

LORD Prescott claims that what Israel is doing in Gaza amounts to a war crime. He seems to have forgotten that as the Deputy Prime Minister in 2003 he backed the invasion of Iraq which has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths based on the fiction that the UK was in danger of imminent attack by Saddam Hussein.

I look forward to Lord Prescott handing himself in at the International Criminal Court.

From: Diane Saunders, Moortown, Leeds.

I HAVE just read the article by Alistair Hay (The Yorkshire Post, July 28) adding up the human cost in Gaza and he has my sympathy… I am also having problems with the maths.

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There is no hierarchy in misery, every death is important. I do not know the professor well enough to ask him about his calculations for deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria etc, perhaps he will enlighten me.

The Hamas Charter is clear and unambiguous. They say they want to kill every Jew, not only Israelis, so that includes me and my family.

Israel has a proven track record of peace, as is evident with Egypt and Jordan where land was exchanged for security, stability and peace which to this day have held. Who have Hamas ever made peace with? Professor Hay feels powerless to stop Israel but he doesn’t consider it important to stop Hamas firing rockets and I cannot understand why.

From: Jack Brown, Lamb Lane, Monk Bretton, Barnsley.

bill Carmichael reveals one significant fact about David Ward MP (The Yorkshire Post, July 25) that I could have guessed: he was a polytechnic lecturer.

From: Grenville Horsfall, Clifton, Brighouse.

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YEARS ago Britain ran Palestine but in 1948 we gave some land to the Jews because they had no homeland. How to stop the war and live in peace? Open sea trade routes to Gaza and Israel and give back the land stolen from Palestine.

From: David McKenna, Hall Gardens, Rawcliffe, Goole.

I READ with interest letters from both sides of the latest Israeli/Palestinian debate (The Yorkshire Post, July 24). While your correspondent Martin D Stern tried to distract us from the Israeli violence, Geoffrey F Bryant made it quite clear that any Israeli apologist needs to re-read his/her history books.

We hear all the reasons for Israeli action against Palestine and Gaza in particular from their spokesperson on the radio almost every day and the gist of his responses is that Israel is always right in what it does.

I think that I am correct in saying that Israel has broken, or ignored, more United Nations resolutions than Iraq ever did and has got away with it, primarily as the American administration is loathe to condemn the country whose superior arms capability it has provided; and of course, there is no oil in that area.