LETTER OF THE WEEK

I reeceived a copy of this letter written by Dr. Bill Anderson in response to an contradictory and messy Op Ed article Mideast stalemate dooms Palestinians by Arabist Patrick Seale:

Dear Editor,

Patrick Seale in a few short paragraphs manages to present practically all the well worn anti-Zionist allegations and critiques ("Mideast stalemate dooms Palestinians", 27.10.09)

Even the most cursory reading of his article throws up internal contradictions. He writes, for example, that "Cut off from the world by Israel, Gaza is increasingly integrated into the Egyptian economy.

It depends for its survival on goods smuggled in from Egypt through hundreds of cross border tunnels." Seale here firstly blames Israel for cutting off Gaza and then notes that the border between Gaza and Egypt is controlled by Egypt. How then can he hold Israel solely responsible for what he choses to call "The cruel siege of Gaza"?

Seale would do well to reflect on why both nations which share a border with Gaza feel it necessary to adopt such stringent border security measures.

Seale writes that nine tenths of the people in Gaza live below the poverty line, given the immense sums of money that the UN and other many organisations have been pouring into Palestine for decades he might have produced a useful contribution to understanding the present situation in Gaza if he investigated what happened to all this money - clearly it hasn't reached the people it was intended to help.

Seale's whole article is replete with nonsense, half-truths and one-eyed analysis. If his article reflects the standard of analysis of "a leading British writer on the Middle East" one shudders to think what sort of nonsense lesser British writers on the Middle East are churning out.

Dr Bill Anderson