Anyone who devotes only a cursory glance at the news, both print and television, would be forgiven for thinking that, out of malice, Israel has decided to destroy the Palestinian people. The problem with that conclusion - and it's not something you're going to learn, is that, contrary to the currently popular belief, Israel is actually acting with a ridiculous degree of restraint.

It's a common feeling amongst residents of southern Israeli towns who have been the silent victims of a long campaign of violence, intimidation and murder carried out by Hamas. And now, finally, that the Israelis have said that enough is enough, they are somehow seen to be the aggressors?

There are people of good conscience on both sides of this argument. However, one of the main problems in this debate lies in the cowardly tendency of the Western media to apply equivalence to both sides.

Hamas is a fundamentalist Islamic organisation intent on the eradication of the state of Israel and all its citizens; a violent fascist regime that allows honour killings, terrorism and the execution of homosexuals to continue in its sphere of influence.

Israel is the front line of the war between democracy and Islamic fascism.

Same values

The civilian deaths in Gaza are to be mourned, and anyone who says otherwise is reprehensible. But in a sick and twisted irony, they are mourned more by Israelis than by Hamas, who know that every dead Palestinian kid is worth another piece of propaganda. Here in the West, where we share the same values as Israel, we need to start standing shoulder with this tiny oasis of democracy in a vast desert of savagery. To do otherwise is moral cowardice of the most repugnant kind.

I am, etc.,

NICK SUTHERLAND

nicholassutherland@yahoo.com

Red Hills, St Andrew