PICTURE NOT WORTH A SINGLE WORD

Remember that deplorable and factually flawed piece of scribbling from Matt Golding in last week's Sunday Age?

Age reader Alan Freedman tells the Age what's wrong with Golding's drivel in its letters section:

Picture not worth 1000 words

YOUR cartoon in last week's Sunday Age equating the growth of Islamism with the entry of the "coalition of the willing" into Iraq only demonstrates that its author, Matt Golding, has been well and truly conned by the fanatical Islamists. In case he hadn't noticed, 9/11 occurred before the invasion of Iraq.

Keen observers of modern-day Islamist terrorism are well aware that the primary motive of these terrorists is their zealous desire for Islam to be the dominant religion in the world, with adherents of all other religions either removed or subjugated.

And by linking their activities to a range of international grievances, they have managed to successfully divert attention away from this overarching aim and presented themselves as saviours of the world's oppressed and dispossessed.

It's a pity Golding is not more familiar with world affairs.

ALAN FREEDMAN, East St Kilda

The Age letters section editor obviously didn't take much notice of Freedman's words because he/she saw fit to publish an even more despicable item than the cartoon itself in the form of an attempt by a member of our own idiocracy Bill Mathew to connect the problem of Mumbai with the conflict between Jews and Arabs half a continent away, despite everything that the sole surviving Islamist thug had to say about the atrrocities his group visited upon the Indian people:

Mumbai just part of a bigger problem

FROM your reports on the Mumbai terror (30/11) and from various other reports in the Australian media over the past week, there is increasing evidence now that the terrorist attack on Mumbai is a spill-over of the Middle-East wars, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The US and the UK, the major players in the Middle-East wars, have a duty not only to prevent further escalation by withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, but also to eradicate the primary causes and so achieve peace.

Israel's would-be defence minister, General Moshe Ya'alon, has flagged a possible air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities (The Australian, 24/11). This is a clarion call for further expansion of the Middle-East wars; it will have unforeseen consequences. Israel's invasion and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 and the inhuman treatment of its indigenous inhabitants spawned the Middle-East wars and numerous oil crises. The unquestioning support of the US for Israel has exacerbated the situation over the past four decades. If Iran is working on nuclear bombs, then the existence of Israel's nuclear arsenal is the prime reason for it. If we want a nuclear-free Middle East, the disarmament must start with Israel. If we want a peaceful Middle East, Israel must withdraw from the occupied territories and compensate the refugees. The world has paid a heavy price for Israel's continuing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This situation must not be allowed to continue

BILL MATHEW, Parkville

Really Mr. Mathew?

A bunch of crazed Islamicist hoodlums arrives in town to avenge some grievance they have over the conflict in Kashmir, murder more than 170 people in their attacks on a number of buildings including a Jewish centre where they torture and kill among others a rabbi and his young wife and we blame it on who?

The Jews.

Why? Because they're defending themselves from other aggressive warmongering Islamicists like Hamaz, Hizbullah and the Iranian mullahs who are working overtime to develop a nuclear weapon with which to destroy the Jewish State.

How convenient for you Mr. Mathew and how pathetic for the Melbourne Age to allow such racist tripe into its pages when so many other more logical views don't ever see the light of day there.