Letters to the Editor | 5 August 2006

Hezbollah and genocide

From Lord Kalms
Sir: William Hague’s usual good sense has deserted him. Criticising Israel for being disproportionate without serious consideration of the alternatives merely mouths the buzzwords of the ignorant armchair critic.

Think again, William, for whom you speak. How do you deal with the Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, who is committed to Israel’s total destruction (not a single Jew to remain alive in Israel) and who rains thousands of rockets on Israel, keeping the population in shelters, devastating industry, kidnapping and killing Israeli soldiers within Israeli territory?

Hezbollah combines a unique and dangerous formula: a terrorist organisation ensconced within a large area of the independent but incompetent nation state of Lebanon. With whom do you speak, let alone negotiate? Proportionality in common terminology might mean tit for tat. Do you, William, really believe this to be a serious possibility or a practical response to Hezbollah’s genocide policy? A tragedy is unfolding; the outcome is life or death to the Israeli nation state. William, your comments are not merely unhelpful; they are downright dangerous. As on other issues, is the Conservative party changing its ground?
Stanley Kalms
House of Lords, London SW1

Nightmare of a Soviet Spain

From Christopher John
Sir: Denis MacShane’s article ‘We should have intervened in Spain’ (29 July) is written with sweeping, headline-grabbing statements about Franco’s murderous regime. He completely and most conveniently omitted to mention the atrocities committed by his ‘goodies’, the Republicans, and the very considerable and pervasive presence of high-ranking Soviet military and political personnel in their command structures and fighting units. It is estimated that at least 10,000 priests and nuns were massacred by the Republicans and countless churches were wilfully destroyed, leaving no doubt as to their ultimate aim of creating an atheist, communist state — a fate suffered in 1945 by Poland, the country of origin of Mr MacShane’s own father (Jan Matyjaszek).