Madam, - I see the double standard that allows Israel to remain the sole nuclear power in the Middle East is in operation again, with its threat - unchallenged by either its paymaster, the US, or by the UK, currently glorying in bringing Libya to heel - to attack Iran if it "deems it necessary" (The Irish Times, December 22nd).
Israel is the case that gives the lie to George Bush's bleatings about peace. She is allowed to expropriate Palestinian land with impunity, and to terrorise a captive population.
She is allowed, unlike Iraq or Libya, to develop weapons of mass destruction, and the hyperpower takes no action. And now she is allowed to threaten further destabilisation in an already fraught region by bellicose sabre-rattling.
How can the Americans think that Arab and Iranian sentiment can be won over by this one-sided treatment of a client state? - Yours, etc.,
CATHAL TYNER,
New Row Square,
Dublin 8.