The Good, The Equally Good, And The Frankly Deranged

The various letters and petitions on the topic of Gaza in Friday's Guardian make interesting reading. Three things particularly struck me. One was the sheer number of influential people who signed the first petition. One was the excellent letter from Leon Rosselson, long one of my favourite songwriters. And the last was Chris Gale's lone letter at the bottom attempting to justify Israeli genocide. Knowing the amount of money and effort the Israeli Foreign ministry puts into feeding its propagamda to the British press, that's hardly surprising. What I found extraordinary was his assertion that "Israel's fight is a fight for western values of secular democracy and human rights against those that would unleash a medieval theocracy upon us all."

There is nothing secular or democratic about Israel, whose constitution ensures that it is run by Jews for Jews, and whose Arab citizens are forced to live in restricted areas and denied full political rights. Only this week Arab political parties were banned from contesting the upcoming election. Gale is both a fool and a liar: if any country in the region is trying to force medieval theocracy onto its neighbours, it is Israel; and if any is a democracy it is Gaza.