On October 16 Adelaide Advertiser readers discussed Peter Goers’ views on Israel:
Ignorant rant
PETER Goers’ column “Israel cares little about a great Aussie sacrifice” (Sunday Mail, October 9) is an ignorant, bigoted rant that unfairly denigrates Israel and also unwittingly trashes Australia.
On the basis of one poorly chosen tour guide, Goers makes all kinds of negative generalisations about the country and people of Israel, in contrast to his positive generalisations about “Jordanians”, whom he calls “the most considerate people on Earth”. That’s racism talking.
I attended the official opening of The Park of the Australian Soldier, in Be’er Sheva, in 2008. It is a memorial to all Australian troops who fought in the Middle East in the Great War. It also features a playground for disabled children.
For the hundreds of Israelis and Australians who were at the opening, including the heads of state of both countries, the event was marked by tremendous affection between the two peoples, and enormous pride in our shared history.
The life-size bronze statue of a bayonet-wielding Australian light horseman riding his mount at full gallop was created by Australian sculptor Peter Corlette. It is a moving tribute to the bravery and skill of these troops. Yet in the depth of his prejudice, Goers calls it “awful”.
The article makes the shockingly dishonest claim that “trigger-happy Israeli soldiers” shot an “unarmed Palestinian child” – in reality a youth with a knife who was attacking Israelis.
Goers decries the deadly effects of religious fanaticism, but his silence about the butchery by Islamist terrorists of Christians and other minorities in almost every part of the Middle East other than Israel is telling. Most readers will see that Goers’ column reveals far more about his own prejudices than it does about the reality of the Middle East.
PETER WERTHEIM,
Executive director, Executive Council of Australian Jewry
Out of touch
I USUALLY read Peter Goers’ column for my weekly laughs. This time he has excelled himself – this was not even up to his usual standard of dogma over fact. This was the pure “I hate Jews” raving that you expect from bleeding-heart leftists.
I suggest this article is even more out of touch than his absolute inability to see the poverty and inhumane conditions in Cuba.
MICK DAVEY, Mt Gambier
Just so bitter
WHAT a twisted and bitter individual Peter Goers is. His long history of nauseating rants against Jews has reached the stage where he is now unable to see even one scintilla of good in Israel and its people, or separate fact from fiction.
Having caught the Israel derangement disease many years ago, he is clearly now beyond all help. How else can one explain Goers invoking of Allah’s name in the hope that the Palestinians will launch even more terror attacks against Israelis, instead of encouraging them to return to the negotiating table and make peace?
The real question is why the Sunday Mail and the ABC, for whom he works, continue to indulge this ideologue?
VICTOR ARNOLD, Royal Park
Offensive remarks
AS a retired officer in the Canadian armed forces, I spent two tours of duty in Sinai and one on the Golan Heights on UN operations. I find the comments by Peter Goers about Israel to be offensive.
I have visited the Australian cemetery in Be’er Sheva and it is beautifully cared for by the local community. As for Palestinians being shot in the streets, they were in the act of committing attacks on Israeli civilians. Arabs living in Israel have more freedom than in any other Arab country in the Middle East, bar none.
EARL GARDNER, Ontario, Canada