Careless parallel

I am surprised you published the comment from Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob (Letters, 29 June) that “the Israelis who slaughtered innocent civilians in Gaza last summer do not represent Judaism” as if killing civilians had been deliberate Israeli policy.

As Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, pointed out, the Israeli army went well beyond the requirements of international law to avoid 
civilian casualties and most of these were a direct consequence of Hamas’s siting of its rocket launchers in schools, hospitals, mosques and other purely civilian areas, itself a war crime.”

It is wrong to link Israelis in general to “terrorists [who] do not represent Islam, in the same way as the white supremacist who gunned down churchgoers in South Carolina, does not represent Christianity”.

A more reasonable parallel would have been to “Dr Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of Muslim worshippers in Hebron in 1994”, itself universally condemned in Israel.

Unfortunately, such throwaway statements are all too common features of Palestinian propaganda which should 
have no place in a reputable paper.

Martin D Stern

Hanover Gardens

Salford