Today’s letters to The Courier.
Sir, – I was shocked to read the comments of Flora Selwyn (A Problem with Palestine, July 23).
I invite her to spend a week in the occupied Palestinian Territory and with a Palestinian family. If she does, she might gain a better understanding of what it feels like to be Palestinian and experience the brutalities, humiliation, threats and misery of life under military occupation.
The SPSC and a large sector of British society are trying to stop this brutal occupation that the entire world outside of Israel considers illegal by using non-violent methods that have been adopted by activists around the world, against systematic human rights abuses.
This approach is one of the most effective methods available to stop ongoing Israeli state abuses of human rights.
As for Flora Selwyn’s ludicrous assertion that the Palestinians do not exist, I simply refer her to the consensus of the international community, as represented by the United Nations and the numerous resolutions issued by the Security Council and General Assembly since 1948.
With regard to Ms Selwyn’s spurious claims that Israel is a democracy including all of historic Palestine, I would ask her to follow the courage of her convictions by campaigning for a single state in which all citizens, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, enjoy equal democratic rights.
Dr Mohamad Issa,Strathmore Terrace,Alyth.
Platform fee would bring peace of mind
Sir, – We have also experienced difficulty at Dundee Railway Station (Courier, July 23). Our daughter has travelled twice from London by train with two-year-old twin boys.
On the first occasion we arrived expecting to be able to help her alight from the train but were told we could not go through the barrier because the platform was too busy due to delayed trains. The two ladies monitoring the barrier said she should have requested assistance.
She managed to arrange this for the return journey but she was told the service was specifically for older travellers and those with a disability and they would have priority. There were, however, two people assigned to help her with luggage.
On her second trip, although we had paperwork showing she had requested this service, we were told someone was going to meet her but they didn’t seem to be there to help and she again alighted from the train with the help of other passengers.
There was someone assigned to help her with luggage for the return journey on her last trip but he seemed to be struggling to cope with the wheeled case.
The boys are well behaved and walk along very well but there is always the worry that they will miss their footing or become too curious about the trains.
Travelling by train is convenient for our daughter but it could be a much less stressful time if at least one of us was given access to the platform to help.
We would be willing to pay a fee for platform access to have peace of mind that our daughter and grandsons were able to safely board and leave the train.
As a previous writer said, surely some discretion and common sense is called for.
Catherine Peebles,Berryhill Road,Fowlis Easter.
The greatest circus on Earth
Sir, – What concerns me about the Olympics is not the financial cost, road congestion, over-rated threats to civil liberties or the virtual monopolising of the airwaves with a monoculture of sporting ‘news’.
Rather, it is the knowledge that if an event giving rise to national mourning occurred (like the death of Diana or the Queen Mother), the games could not be abandoned as a mark of respect due to contractual obligations.
Were the next few weeks to see the sad loss of any of our royal family or Lady Thatcher, the British people could never continue with the games in a spirit of enforced jollity.
Yet, that is precisely what the promoters and sponsors of this tawdry sporting circus would attempt to ensure.
John Eoin Douglas,Spey Terrace,Edinburgh.
What price a port in storm?
Sir, – There has been much discussion in recent weeks about Britain’s armed forces, with particular reference to how much better off we Scots would be freed from the burden of the UK’s commitments in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere (Wasting billions on military hardware does not make for a secure Britain, July 23).
Like the Republic of Ireland in the Second World War, an independent Scotland would then be safe under the umbrella of English or British defences, while contributing nothing to our security.
The refusal to allow access to naval bases by neutral Ireland in the Second World War led directly to the loss of thousands of British sailors’ lives in the mid-Atlantic gap, the happy hunting ground of U-boats.
I was interested to read recently that one of Germany’s gripes after the First World War was the limitation of its armed forces to 100,000 personnel, as that would not be enough to protect her borders and police civil disorder. Yet David Cameron has cut our forces to 85,000!
George McMillan,Mount Tabor Avenue,Perth.
Sights set on jailing Madge
Sir, – Given pop star Madonna’s crass and insensitive antics with pistols and assault rifles at her Murrayfield concert, I would suggest she is in more need of locking up than the Naked Rambler.
R Smith,Braeside Terrace,Aberdeen.
Get involved: to have your say on these or any other topics, email your letter to letters@thecourier.co.uk or send to Letters Editor, The Courier, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL. Letters should be accompanied by an address and a daytime telephone number.