NZ and Israel
Two busloads of evangelical Christians have driven from Napier to Wellington to protest outside Parliament. They are loudly accusing Foreign Minister Murray McCully of doing ‘‘the devil’s work’’ by enabling evil Arabs to fulfil their life-long aim to wipe Israel of the face of the Earth.
Hello? Which parallel universe, are these people living in?
Fair-minded New Zealanders support the principles outlined in John Kerry’s excellent speech, 101 per cent. No mention there, of any de-legitimisation of Israel at all, quite the contrary.
People, this is not Sunday School, this is the real world, needing realtime solutions, to real-world problems, not kindergarten rants. We’ll leave those to the heated rebuttals and nasty personal attacks emanating from the office of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
John Watkins, Katikati Further to the anti-Israel letters (January 1), their content is just another evidence of how history can be revised and twisted by propaganda.
Israel, founded in 1948, was immediately attacked by hordes of Arabs from surrounding countries, with the intention of wiping out every single Jew and taking the land away from them. Miracle of miracles, the small Jewish army won, and proceeded to do so in three more attacks in the following years.
Jews had been marched into the gas chambers of Europe, but this time they actually became strong and prevailed, because they had something to fight for. This tiny, vulnerable spot, the only democratic country in the whole of the Middle East, became stronger and more assertive, building wonderful scientific institutions, universities, etc. and continued constantly to try to broker a peace with its malevolent neighbours.
How many of these peace efforts broke down because of Palestinian (mainly Hamas) refusal to compromise? It is only thanks to the courage and strength of character which Benjamin Netanyahu has constantly displayed that Israel does not cave in under relentless, Arab-sponsored (read oil) pressure. The West Bank settlements are only a tiny part of this huge issue, but of course, the anti-Semitic factions in this world fasten on to it as the reason for the UN resolution by – (cringe with shame) New Zealand and Venezuela. Of course (tongue in cheek), our record with Maori land issues is so wonderful that we can sit in judgement on other countries! Do not revise history – read unbiased accounts of what has really happened.
Ruth Filler, Auckland