Unbalanced and emotion-based

The letters from Michael Ryan (19 January) and Gareth Smith (5 January) have the usual unbalanced and emotion-based statements.

Michael Burd in his letter (12 January) shows a balanced letter stating that there are always two sides to an argument, and both sides need to be heard.

Israel as a country has every right to be there and has the exact same religion, currency, and language that it had from biblical times before the Romans invaded and renamed the wider region Palestine.

Palestine was a region of Jews and non-Jews and never in history a country, just as you can never say the Middle East was ever one single country.

Israel is but a small percentage of the land mass that was Palestine, and Arab countries already make up the balance.

If you are so sure that ‘Palestine’ the country goes back through history, I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions:

When was it founded and by whom? What were its borders? What was its capital? What were its major cities? What constituted the basis of its economy? What was its form of government?

Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat? Was Palestine ever recognised by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation? What was the language of the country of Palestine? What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine? What was the name of its currency? Why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their defeat in the Six Day War?

Read the letter by Danny Wakil, Billinudgel in Echo.