IT IS breathtaking that Tom Shields (January 4) has not a bad word for Hamas, whereas at least half the globe blames the Islamists. This, in itself, disqualifies him as a "neutral observer". His writing emanates from his heart rather than out of justice, morality and reason.

After Jerusalem's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, well over 8000 missiles were indiscriminately fired at Israel which reacted with a restraint that no other country would.

The international community understands and made it clear that the duty of a sovereign government is to protect its citizens, which is precisely what Jerusalem is doing. Israel's operation was launched at the end of six months of quietness that was violated on a daily basis by the rejectionists. This gives the Jewish State legitimacy and moral rectitude. Shields, therefore, is categorically wrong to assert "the world stays silent". The world is not silent. Many Arab leaders, led by Egypt, have put the blame squarely on Ismail Haniya. They clearly know something Tom does not.

Moreover, it is immoral to compare Israel to Nazi Germany. The Jews in Europe never called for the obliteration of Germany. Hamas on the other hand proclaims day and night that its raison d'être is to wipe Israel from the map.

Had the Third Reich treated the Jews the way Jerusalem is treating Hamas and supplying it with fuel, humanitarian aid and Red Cross access to Palestinian prisoners (compare this to the treatment of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit), six million Jews as well as millions of communists, homosexuals, and decent Christians who stood up to the Nazi evil would not have perished. Tom, there is no moral equivalence here.

A Soudry, Glasgow

I have read Tom Shields's diatribe with some degree of bewilderment. The facts are well known, but he chooses to ignore them and puts forward his own spin. He ignores the fact that the Israelis protect their citizens from the rain of Qassam rockets, thus preventing the casualties that would ensue otherwise. But Hamas fires rockets from the middle of its own population. It uses the deaths and injury of its own people for propaganda. It calls it disproportionate that Israel chooses to defend itself. Israel has not retaliated for months to the hail of rockets But there is a limit to the amount of provocation. Israel did warn Hamas and the people of Gaza that if these attacks continued then it would have to take strong action to defend its own people. The world and the "innocent" people of Gaza have only themselves to blame if they ignored this warning.

Philip I Clare, Glasgow

TOM Shields's diatribe, "Gaza ghetto is destroyed and the world stays silent" is one of the most flagrantly ignorant pieces I've read recently. The only thing right about it is the description of Gaza as a "ghetto'" Who is responsible for that? Hamas, which keeps its people under its tight, evil grip. I suppose Shields hasn't heard that Hamas in the last few days has executed some 35 Fatah supporters they merely suspect of collaborating with Israel, and have shot in the legs and even broken the hands of others for the same trumped-up reason.

So Israel is an apartheid state. How come then that Israeli Arabs have equal citizenship rights with all other Israeli citizens, and that there are elected Arab Israeli members of the Knesset? How does he account for the many Arab students in Israeli universities?

It makes me wonder who pays Mr Shields to produce his blatant nonsense. Thank goodness the Bush administration understands (and now even some Arab countries).

Flora Selwyn, Fife

Tom Shields's piece exemplifies the prejudiced commentaries on Israeli policy which are prevalent in the British press. This sort of unquestioning regurgitation of propaganda is inflammatory and dangerous.

Where to start? Enquiring readers might like to peruse the websites of Bicom and of Israeli counter-terrorism centres. M Bard's Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict on www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org, or M Gilbert's History of Israel are among other reputable sources of information, context and historical background. Thus equipped, they may then better appreciate the precise inversion of the truth, the folly and the obscenity of making an analogy with Nazi Germany, of referring to rocket attacks on "Jewish settlements", of accusing Israel of "apartheid" and "indiscriminate destruction", and of the revisionist lie that Israeli land was stolen from the Palestinian people. Shame on you, Sunday Herald, for peddling these and similar formulaic calumnies.

Why no examination or criticism of the zeal with which Hamas subjects Gazans to danger by omitting to build an adequate number of air-raid shelters, deliberately using human shields, indoctrinating the people intensively via the internet and other media in order to cultivate outrageously anti-Semitic/Zionist attitudes and sentiments and celebrating, rewarding and sanctifying the notion of mass murder through suicide bombings and other means? Why no essay, in short, on the ways in which Hamas infringes human rights, deserves to be labelled a terrorist organisation and perpetuates atrocities and abuses against Palestinians? Who dares to critcise radical Islam for advocating, as a sacred duty, the murder of Jews and Christians, of Westerners and those sympathetic to Western values, wherever they are to be found in the world?

The sincere desire by Israel to co-exist peacefully and respectfully with Arab neighbours was in evidence at the beginning and persists. How, though, can peace be negotiated with people who are contemptuous of the concept? The further concessions which Hamas demands of Israel are incompatible with the latter's survival. It is hideous, of course, that Gazans are being injured and killed but what is the alternative? Is Israel expected to continue to absorb rocket attacks with pacific restraint until hundreds of Israelis die too? Imagine if this were Scotland's predicament...

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