Meddling in the Middle East
I was disappointed to read Simon Tisdall’s piece Israel rejoices but hears drums of war (27 April). It is difficult to understand how in 2018 such an unbalanced view could be written of a state with the longest colonial expansionist project in recent history.
Now weeks into the massacres of Palestinian protesters, your author’s only mention of the country occupied by Israel is “endless confrontations with the Palestinians, for whom Israel’s independence is known as the Nakba”. He then focuses the whole piece on Syria, Iran and on Israel’s fears. Palestine, experiencing daily far more than mere fears from its occupier, is made invisible once more. Its catastrophe, the region’s ethnic cleansing and its continuing oppression are referenced only in the author’s bracketed explanation of the term Nakba. No joy there.
The rejoicing Israelis, we are informed, however, celebrated with drones displaying “favourite Israeli symbols”, including “a dove with an olive branch in its mouth”. The Palestinians can of course look forward to the upcoming loss of their capital, East Jerusalem, when Tisdall will no doubt see more jolly drones and tedious confrontations, rather than the desperate, courageous resistance of the Palestinians.
Elizabeth Eastmond
Auckland, New Zealand
• Was Andrew Rawnsley’s call for western intervention in Syria (20 April) satire or cynicism? Few of the world’s regions have had to endure the benefits of western intervention more so than the Middle East.
As to his lament about “shredded international norms about the conduct of war” in Syria, the world’s response to the use of gas by the Syrian regime concedes that respect for the Geneva conventions among the great powers has been reduced to hand-wringing and finger-wagging.
The Geneva conventions do not tolerate the killing of civilians. Nor do they permit the bombing of hospitals and schools, or the virtual imprisonment and denial of access to food and health services to entire populations, even if done in the pursuit of political or strategic goals.
The history of western nations engaged in the Middle East is not a proud one. It is dominated by economic self-interest. It is high time for western powers to allow their decisions to be guided by the principles of the Geneva conventions, not just in Syria, but in the entire region.
André Carrel
Terrace, British Columbia, Canada
• If we accept that military intervention has a poor record of success and there is no sign that intervention in Syria will be different, then what can we do? Perhaps the strongest peace-building alternative is to not sell weapons into these areas. Easy to say, I know, because that means not making them or selling them to subsidise our own stockpile. Then we can lobby other governments to do the same.
Oops, I forgot! The big arms companies lobby governments.
Colin Hardie
Balwyn, Victoria, Australia
Football is not about money
Jonathan Wilson tries bravely, but unconvincingly, in your 20 April piece, Scintillating City deserve plaudits, to praise Manchester City for having won the Premier League title. His polite references to the vast amount of money spent in buying the team cannot disguise the fact such an approach is a denial of what makes football a worldwide game.
He surely knows the game of football isn’t fundamentally about money, much as it has come to infect the game. He is aware that, globally, it’s still about people without money playing on just about any surface using anything for goalposts and any kind of ball.
Wilson is up against it then, in trying to make Manchester City extraordinary for doing what the side were expected to do in a small field. I suggest he might be better occupied in examining the ways in which money has harmed the game.
Bill Finn
St Paul, Alberta, Canada
Briefly
• Australia doesn’t exist (27 April): that’s good news for some of us who don’t want any more people poking around down here. Let the 7.5 billion people on the planet remain in ignorance: we have tried to frighten them off with our 50C deserts, cyclones, floods, bushfires, toxic plants, deadly snakes, spiders, crocodiles, sharks, blue-ringed octopi, box and irukandji jellyfish, but still they come. Spread the word that we don’t exist: it would be much appreciated.
Rhys Winterburn
Perth, Western Australia
• Over two pages of the Guardian Weekly (13 April) I learnt about the molecular structure of bird eggs, a star that emitted light 9bn light years ago, bowhead whales that sing for six months straight, and dinosaur tracks on the Isle of Skye, not to mention new rivers in Argentina and Antarctic melt-off. I have read the paper from front to back, but I think the Discovery section deserves the prize for the most real news.
Richard Holland
Grafton, Ontario, Canada
• Regarding the Mind & Relationships column by Oliver Burkeman in the 27 April issue: Are the headlines giving you anxiety? I’m sure I am not the only one to notice that this article provides the perfect reason for reading the Guardian Weekly.
Tony Le May
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
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