The Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s call for sanctions against Israel in response to Binyamin Netanyahu’s desperate election day comments would be counterproductive (Letters, 25 March). Netanyahu has already retracted the comments and should be judged on his actions. These show pragmatic concessions to Palestinians, such as the Wye agreement and the release of 1,024 Palestinians for Gilad Shalit. Netanyahu should be wooed and wheedled, coaxed and cajoled. For it is only rightwing politicians like Menachem Begin and Netanyahu (or military heroes like Yitzhak Rabin) who can persuade the majority of Israelis to support concessions for peace with the Palestinians. Sanctions would increase Israeli paranoia and distance peace prospects.
As a pro-Arab Jew who has devoted a lifetime to improving relations between both peoples (and who chaired a major public meeting in Manchester about the elections), I know that Netanyahu will progress the peace process if the circumstances make it to his advantage to do so. As with French-German relations after the second world war, Israeli-Palestinian relations will advance if we nurture their inter-related economic development, so that “they beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks”.
Andrew Rosemarine (former fellow of the Harry S Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Jerusalem)
Manchester
• What do the signatories of the letter believe will change Hamas policy in relation to its own treatment of the people of Gaza and the continued existence of Israel?
Jeremy Beecham
Labour, House of Lords
• I have long been a critic of the Israeli occupation but am concerned by the letter calling for sanctions against Israel. China occupies Tibet, Turkey occupies North Cyprus, India occupies Kashmir. So why is it that only the Jewish state attracts this demand for sanctions?
Paul Miller
London
