Doing a gross disservice to Israel

SIR – I fail to understand why The Southern Star keeps publishing letters from the Zionist apologist Maerton Davis, who justifies the Israeli colonisation of Palestine and the apartheid regime that the State of Israel maintains in occupied Palestine. Mr Davis’s letter is extremely racist and Islamophobic, and,  in comparing Bob Storey and me to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, he is actually doing a gross disservice to the state of which he and I are citizens. The State of Israel has long used the Holocaust and the persecution of Jewish people by the Nazis, and continues to support racist and genocidal regimes by arming them and providing them with military and security training.

Israel’s policies are in fact criticised by many Israelis, including, most recently, the former head of the Shin Beth Secret Services Karmi Gilon, who oppose the occupation of Palestine, if only because it is not serving the interests of the State of Israel itself, never mind because the occupation is oppressive and contradicts international law and conventions which Israel has signed.

I will not bother refuting Mr Davis’s ridiculous biblical assertions and racist accusations. I would just like to ask that The Southern Star stop publishing hate speech letters by him. I would also  advise your readers to acquaint themselves with the facts concerning the everyday oppression and discrimination against Palestinians – citizens, occupied and besieged subjects alike – by the Israeli racial colony, which keeps ignoring international law and the international community’s opposition to its discriminatory and illegal policies.

Ronit Lentin,

Cornmarket, Dublin 8.