LETTER: Writer has forgotten his Bible and history

SIR – Once again individuals use the readers’ letters column of your paper to spread slanders about my country.

One such letter was Bob Storey’s slanderous claims against Israel. 

His opening paragraph is sufficient to see the falsehood of his arguments. He positions Israel as seeking ‘to disappear Palestinians as the indigenous peoples of the occupied territory.’

If Mr Storey cares to go to his Holy Bible, he will find overwhelming evidence that it is the Jewish people who are the indigenous people of the ancient Land of Israel. 

Somehow, in Mr Storey’s Bible, God forgot the Palestinians when He promised Abraham and his descendants via the line of Isaac and Jacob (i.e. the Jewish line) the land and that He would make for them a great nation. 

This tradition and heritage is why Moses brought the Children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt back to the Promised Land.

It is why the Israelites wept by the waters of Babylon as they remembered Zion. 

It is why the mighty Romans defeated the stubborn Jewish fighters, cursed them and the land, and called it Palestine.

It seems that Mr Storey has forgotten his Bible and history as he curses Israel and the Jewish people as he weaves a fraudulent argument against us.

The return of the Jewish people to their ancient land is a holy commandment come true in our time. A modern miracle. 

Peace is only possible when hateful enemies put down their swords, rockets, and explosive belts, realise the truth that the Jewish State of Israel is here to stay, and come to the negotiating table.

Israel has stretched out its hand in peace to old enemies, Egypt and Jordan, who have signed and kept peace agreements with us.

This is the message that Mr Storey should be promoting to Palestinian Arabs and other enemies of Israel who, for too many decades, stubbornly reject recognition of Israel and have brainwashed their people to become martyrs in a futile struggle to destroy my country. 

Barry Shaw,

Senior Associate for 

Public Diplomacy,

Israel Institute for 

Strategic Studies.