The Financial Times building at One Southwark Bridge, London. Photo: Wikipedia.

To the Staff of the Financial Times

Dear Sir,

Your correspondent David Gardner may live in Beirut, but he dwells in a very different world than mine. In his defamatory article on the Israel-Palestionian peace talks (‘US plays the crooked lawyer in an Israeli-Palestinian drama,’, April 4), he parades a host of assertions that no sane observer of the situation would accept as factually correct. But he makes things worse by his egregious complaint that Benjamin Netanyahu is blocking the way to peace by refusing to release a fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners currently serving life sentences for committing brutal murders of innocent civilians, namely Jewish men, women, and children.

Over the years, Israel has released hundreds of murderers with blood on their hands, and the Palestinians have welcomed them home with loud applause, as heroes and heroines. Do David Gardner and I even live in the same moral universe? The Palestinian prisoners may suffer for their heinous crimes, but is that unjust? For that matter, there are hundreds of Israeli families who still suffer daily from the loss of husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and much-loved children. Will the Palestinians put that right? Do they even care? Do they want peace or another chance to fulfill their ambition of 66 years: to drive the Jews into the sea and establish a Palestinian state, as they say every day, ‘from the river to the sea.’ No more Israel, no more Jews, and badges of honour for every miserable murderer in sight.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin
Senior Distinguished Scholar, the Gatestone Institute