Rather nasty letter in The Observer, from a Zionist called Emanuele Ottolenghi. He is defending the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. He is implying that Hamas has never observed a ceasefire which is false. Israel has a long history of breaking or refusing ceasefires. Remember the Lebanon genocide in 1982. The PLO had been honouring a ceasefire for about a year in spite of Israeli breaches including a massacre in a Beirut hospital. Eventually the so-called Abu Nidal group shot and wounded the Israeli ambassador to London - Shlomo Argov - and the Israelis took the "opportunity" to slaughter thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians.

The worrying thing about Ottolenghi is that he is a Research Fellow at Oxford University. It's extremely galling that such a prestigious house of learning can offer cover to an apologist for racist war criminals. Check out this article arguing that "anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism" to see how disingenuous he can be. At one point he says that Noam Chomsky doesn't actually believe in his own criticisms of Israel, he is simply trying to ingratiate himself with leftist gentiles. Then see Michael Rosen's response. Michael Rosen of course is a Jewish anti-Zionist so perhaps he's just trying to ingratiate himself with his SWP comrades.