Might = right?
I was glad your article on Israel’s outrageous ruling on Jerusalem only merited a small column in The Scotsman (Foreign, 3 January). However, it needs to be said loud and clear that in International Law and for a just peace, Jerusalem is to be shared between Israel and the long-awaited Palestine.
It is not Palestine that is the obstacle to peace, but the many measures introduced over a long lifetime by Israel: need I mention the separation wall, the checkpoints, the immensely well-equipped and ruthless Israeli army; the destruction of Palestinian villages and land; the refugees chased out into the world outside their own. These are well known, but the political will to restore justice, along with land, property and the freedom of movement that is a human being’s right is lacking in western governments. Donald Trump’s very obvious compliance with Israeli attempts to rule the whole land, and prevent a viable Palestinian state, should be given no credence and no support.
Warring comes from armed might: and that belongs to Israel.
PAT BRYDEN Balmoral Place, Edinburgh The silence concerning the current unrest in Iran from those such as Jeremy Corbyn and his associates who are frequent and eloquent in their denunciations of Israel and all Western involvement in the Middle East is instructive.
The Iranian regime has always had an appalling human rights record. The suppression of multi-million strong protests after the disputed 2009 presidential elections are well known, as are the killings of many thousands of political prisoners in the 1988 prison massacres. Indeed, the regime still prevents family members, such as the Mothers of Khavaran, mourning those executed and denies the killings even took place.
Those protesting corruption and the decline in living standards have not been slow to realise the connection with Iran’s expensive involvement in the conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and its obsession with the Palestinian cause.
One can speculate how the regime has spent the tens of billions of dollars released to it as a result of Obama’s nuclear agreement, but it is clear that it wasn’t spent on improving the lot of the Iranian people.
The regime will doubtless survive these protests unscathed. How can it be otherwise, when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps acts as a state within a state, defending the Islamic revolution from the Iranian people?
It is high time that Jeremy Corbyn and progressive opinion in general took a proper interest in the oppression in Iran and ceased obsessing about Israel.
OTTO INGLIS Inveralmond Grove, Edinburgh