Sir, Ian J. Harthill (letter, July 25) is incorrect in his assessment of the situation for Israelis. Witnesses report various towns in the north of Israel being ghost towns, and people are fleeing from the north of the country to family or to the homes of strangers. One million people, or about 17 per cent of the total population, are affected.

In some northern towns, all deliveries have stopped. Civilians, homes and hospitals have been targeted deliberately by Hezbollah and businesses have been destroyed.

The British media emphasises the suffering in Lebanon, but this suffering does not make the suffering of Israelis any less, nor does it mean that the Katyusha attacks are “little more than nuisance raids”.

I would love to know, in the present circumstances, how we set about defeating the “ideas” of Hezbollah and their Iranian mentors.

IRENE LANCASTER
Salford

Sir, Daniel Pine and Robert Holton (letters, July 25) give misleading impressions of conditions in Israel. The important fact for Arab Israelis is that, although they are nominally citizens of Israel, they are treated as an inferior class.

As a matter of law, new ownership of land is forbidden to them. About 92 per cent of the land has already passed into Jewish hands. But, beside the law, there is grievous discrimination in practice. Planning rules effectively ensure that an Arab citizen will have no possibility of making natural changes to any property he may own. In default, bulldozers will arrive to destroy his property. In Arab townships delivery of services is distinctly inferior, although taxes are still exacted. Arab children are discriminated against at school.

Mr Holton says that if not Jewish-owned, the land would soon be governed by Sharia. At present, about 20 per cent of the population is Arab. Until recent times, there was no significant religious enthusiasm in Palestine. The Israeli attitude and actions have created more fertile ground for it, but it is still not widespread. The one thing Palestinians crave is a just peace.

JOHN TIPPLER
Spalding, Lincs

Sir, Stephen Pollard’s attack on Sunday AM (Thunderer, July 24), as being virtually edited by Hezbollah, was absurd. We did indeed interview a Lebanese Minister: that she is anti-Syrian and lost her husband to Syrian-backed assassins would perhaps cause some confusion in Pollard’s glib world of good and bad guys. Of course, she was challenged about the culpability of Hezbollah, just as on the previous week’s programme — in a much longer interview — the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres was challenged about Israel’s role in the crisis.

BARNEY JONES
Editor, Sunday AM

Sir, The idea of a new “buffer force” in south Lebanon is ludicrous. Even if the force managed to be deployed peacefully, what would be its rules of engagement? A UN force, Unifil, has been deployed in south Lebanon since 1978. It began with a similarly brave remit to keep the peace, but at the risk of simply becoming another combatant, was swiftly reduced to providing humanitarian aid and “observing” the conflict.

Whatever the dreams of those planning this new “buffer force”, it would not work.

CHRISTOPHER HACK
London SW2

Sir, The conflict in the Middle East is as much a consequence of the fatal weakness of the United Nations and the indecision which plagues the foreign policies of Western powers as it is a result of the actions of Israel or the people of Lebanon.

Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation and UN Resolution 1559 decrees that Lebanese militias should be disarmed and replaced by legitimate Lebanese forces. The UN slowness in implementing the resolution has allowed Hezbollah’s attacks upon northern Israel to continue, leaving the Israelis with no option but to retaliate. The hostility of Israel’s neighbours and their desire to destroy the Jewish state has rendered meaningful diplomacy impossible.

CLIVE GILBERT
Stanmore, Middx

Sir, Hezbollah is the real winner here as Israel plays right into its hands by its predictable overreaction. Even the Americans in Iraq are learning that if you lose the moral high ground by disregarding civilian casualties you cannot win the war.

TOM HALPIN
London

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