The shortest way

Sir: Now that my critics, under the guise of high-minded literary prin ciples, have indulged their petty, personalised and, in some cases, paranoic spleen, perhaps I can answer some of their points. First, Sir Stephen McAdden's canards that the Palestinian refugees left voluntarily and have been kept in squalor as political pawns: Count Bernadotte wrote: " The exodus . . . resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours con cerning real or alleged acts of ter rorism, or expulsion" (UN Doc. A.1648). The same point was made by the Zionist writer, Professor

Norman Bentwich, in a letter to the Observer, June 11, 1967.

Nathan Chofshi, an early Jewish Immigrant to Palestine, testified, "We Jews forced the Arabs to leave cities and villages . . . We turned (them) into tragic refugees. And still we dare to slander and malign them, to besmirch their

name" (cited Hadawi, Bitter Harvest). And Sir John Glubb com

mented, "People who have decided to move house do not do so in such a hurry that they lose other members of their family — hus band losing sight of his wife, or parents of their children. The fact is that the majority left in panic

flight, to escape massacre." (A Soldier with the Arabs, page 25.) It

was the massacre at Deir Yassim, organized by the present leader of the Gahal party, Menachem Begin, Which largely created the panic. The other fabrication is demolished by John H. Davis,

former Commissioner-General of UNRWA, in his book The Evasive Peace, pp 62ff.

Why Sir Stephen should doubt that the people who carried out a campaign of murder and intimida tion against the British forces and UN officials in Palestine would scruple from dealing with the Arabs likewise suggests that it is he who is the victim of delusions.

The persecution of Arabs in occupied territories, in the form of Imprisonment without trial, tor ture, collective punishments, destruction of property, expulsions, etc, is attested not only by the victims but by Western journalists, the Red Cross, Amnesty, the UN Human Rights Commission and the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights. Discrimination in an ex

clusivist society is unavoidable, and it is practised in the form of the immigration laws, restrictions on residence and movement, in Payment for labour, in education and in political participation. Vide, inter alia, Robinson, Israel and the Arabs; Petetz, Israel and the Palestine Arabs, and 'La Question Palestinienne ' (Colloque de Juristes Arabes, Algiers, July 1967). In my

piece, I was lampooning the dual standard of morality of those who condemn these practices in Greece or Southern Africa but condone them in Israel-occupied territory.

As for propaganda activities, I had America in mind rather than Britain, as it is there the Zionist influence is critical in swaying government policy and ultimately the fate of the Middle East. The Senate hearings (May-August 1963) into the activities of the Jewish Agency show that, while posing as a charity, it functioned as an arm of the Israeli government and, between 1955-62, spent over five million dollars in ' cultivating ' the churches, press, radio, TV and the universities (vide Moshe Menuhin, The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time, pp 435ff). Some of the pressures exerted on anti-Zionists are listed in Kishtainy's Verdict in Absentia (PLO Research Centre, Beirut 1969). And there is corroborative evidence in the correspondence columns of the Listener, following an article I wrote in March 1970 on Middle East lobbies. Finally, the possibility of an Israeli nuclear strike, in extreme circumstances, was prompted by three considerations: (a) Israel's refusal to sign the treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons, (b) hints dropped by Zionist writers that she has developed or could quickly produce such weapons and (c) the circulation of manuals on the tactical use of ' atomic arms among Israel's services. I assume they're not read for their literary content only.

My analysis of the Middle East situation may, of course, be mistaken, but I trust the evidence I have cited (which is only a minute fraction of the literature available) will silence the intemperate slanders of my more hysterical critics.

F. R. MacKenzie 2 Frankswood Avenue, Petts Wood, Kent Sir: "It was with a mixture of sadness, boredom and pity" that I noted your correspondents sharpening their goose-quills against Mr MacKenzie's ' Shortest Way with Trespassers' — particularly as so few of them seem to know how to write.

I pa:-,s over Mr Barshak's singular refusal to recognize the plurality of the word 'excreta ' — an error due, doubtless, to the profound embarrassment which Mr Barshak untruthfully claims for all readers of the vigorous ' CounterBlast ' — in favour of the surprising looseness with which he fluctuates between "one," " we " and "I," uncertain whether to attempt impersonality; or to persuade you, sir, that he is not alone in his faddish complaints; or to be seen in his true colours as a peevish illiterate " Surprising " bad grammar? Yet he claim; to have read your magazine for more than twent9 years.

How strange, too, that your correspondents from the House of Commons should both favour one adjective above all others — " turgid "I Sir Stephen McAdden castigated the author for his "onesidedness," and Mr Gorst found the piece " quite uncalled for." Both might do worse than to remember that what you, sir, asked for was, in fact, a polemic, and Mr Mackenzie's ' Epistle' was v °thing if not controversial — witness Mr Gorst's infelicitous contortions against what he calls "this unnecessarily savage piece of anti Israel propaganda." (Can he point to a piece that is necessarily savage?)

Sir Stephen McAdden pronounced Mr Mackenzie's wording to be "obscure." Would Sir Stephen, care to specify the phrases which eluded him?" "Palatable sophistry" (para 7)? "Flatulent posturings " (para 27)? Or was he more worried by Mr Mackenzie's judicious snipe at the "credulous rabble "? I had rather imagined that all these would have been part and parcel of the parliamentary stock-in-trade of one renowned for his ability to wear the well-worn phrases just a little bit thinner.

Permit me, moreover, to assure you, sir, that a mere chit of eighteen found no difficulty with any of Mr Mackenzie's vocabulary. This remarkable acquaintance with my native tongue you may attribute, if you choose, to my having devoted rather less of my time to the utterance of Sir Stephen McAdden, MP, than to the study of that same Dr Swift who pronounced the bulk of mankind to be as well qualified for flying as for thinking: and which bulk's right to be represented by such as Sir Stephen McAdden, MP, and Mr Gorst, Britain's greatest satirist would have been the first to recognise.

J. Maule Newbies Cottage, Baughurst, Basingstoke, Hants