No relations?

A quite good letter in The Guardian. relating Israel to apartheid South Africa, calling for a curtailment of certain relations between the West and Israel and written by a Mr Hain. I wonder if by any chance he might be related to Peter Hain, the UK cabinet minister.

"To oppose sanctions against Israel on the grounds that these did not work in Iraq or Cuba and "would have no impact upon the Israeli government" is to ignore their decisive effect upon a country much more similar to Israel - apartheid South Africa.

Israel is, as the latter was, essentially a western colonialist state, both in its continuing attitude towards the people it has dispossessed and the need for its legitimacy to be accepted by the west, and crucially in its overriding need for the west to continue to bankroll it.

Therefore, like South Africa before the sanctions brought down the apartheid regime (both in denying it funds, and in ostracising it culturally and in sport), sanctions are the only viable means available to force those running Israel to understand that the west is no longer prepared to underwrite what has essentially been an invasion and creeping occupancy of Palestine against the wishes of its inhabitants, to give thanks that the Palestinians are prepared to give up attempting to recover their land and accept Israel within its 1967 borders, and to withdraw immediately from those territories.

UN resolution 242 of 1967, calling for the withdrawal from the occupied territories, has been ignored by Israel for over 35 years, with no action from the west except "the gentle art of persuasion" - precisely that which allowed apartheid to continue for over 45 years. No wonder the rest of the world condemns us for our double standards."

Walter Hain
London