The rough with the smooth

Some good letters in today's Guardian, criticising Jonathan Freedland's article in yesterday's Guardian. There are some bad ones of course, including one from fraudster, Alan Dershowitz, but here are my faves:

What double standards from Jonathan Freedland (Comment, July 27). As British Jews, he and I have a choice of being citizens in Britain or Israel. Palestinians and especially refugees, are citizens of no country. But they are fighting for liberation with the only weapons they possess - tragically, sometimes that does mean literally turning themselves into human bombs.

Meanwhile, a British Jew can become an Israeli, join the armed services, and expect to be called upon to use the most sophisticated military equipment, supplied by the US, to crush the Palestinian uprising. We know, for sure, that means the possibility of killing thousands of innocent civilians. Jonathan, rather than pontificate on how the Muslim community in Britain should behave, shouldn't you and I turn our attention to the Jewish community here? Shouldn't we be raising questions about the morality of British Jews joining the Israeli miltary at this time?
John Rose
London

Thousands of Palestinians, have been killed over the years, their homes demolished, their land expropriated. The number of illegal West Bank settlers has now reached 400,000 and the separation wall, condemned by the international court of justice, continues to be built in order to annex large areas of the Palestinian territory. What is this if not state terrorism? Double standards of this kind are one of the reasons for the fury and violence we are now experiencing.
Hilary Wise
London

Its hard to know who Jonathan Freedland is talking about when he says the "wider left" is "hugging" Muslims who "are sharply at odds with Britain's progressive tradition". But, for the record, both the aims of the Stop the War Coalition and the election manifesto of Respect sustain the support of many tens of thousands of Muslims on an entirely progressive basis.

To those who cannot distinguish between life in Palestine and Iraq, and that in Britain: the former are war zones in territory occupied by a hostile armed force, the latter is not.

The left would be stronger, the "fundamentalists" weaker and the threat of terrorism less if more people became involved in organising this progressive response to the crisis into which New Labour has plunged us all.
John Rees
National secretary, Respect

Particularly nice to see John Rose finding some old form.