A chara, - Mark Steyn (August 22nd) complains that the Palestinians are apparently deemed " 'deserving' [ of] a state without ever having to earn one". He claims "the United States doesn't exist because the colonists 'deserved' a state, but because they went out and fought for one. The same with the Irish Republic." He then refers to Gaza as "a terrorist squat" and warns that it will become "a latter-day Taliban Afghanistan: jihad central masquerading as a political jurisdiction."
So the Palestinians don't deserve a state unless they fight for one, but when they do fight for one, they are terrorists, squatters and jihadists. You cannot denounce a people for not fighting for a state in one paragraph and then denounce them for doing exactly that in the next.
Mr Steyn also mentions that he has "never subscribed to the notion that this or that people 'deserve' a state - a weird and decadent post-modern concept of nationality and sovereignty." This seems on the surface to be a sensible statement, until you remember that it is being put forward as an argument in favour of Israel!
I realise that it is important to understand both sides of the Arab -Israeli conflict. However it is also important that professional writers at the very least make sense and do not flatly contradict themselves in every other paragraph. - Yours, etc,
KIRSTEN FOY, Knocklyon Gate, Dublin.