Israeli tactics
From Mr Emerson Roberts Sir: Emma Williams's article ('Why Sharon wants war', 5 October) sets out some important facts about the Palestinian issue as it now stands. However, it is inaccurate to suggest that the doctrine of 'transfer' (ethnic cleansing) is one of the 'concepts once considered unspeakable' in Israel.
Generations of Israeli leaders. including Dayan, Ben-Gurion and Rabin, have argued that Jordan was the natural home of the Palestinians. Millions of Palestinians now do live in Jordan, forced out by war, terror tactics and a variety of devices forbidding Palestinians (particularly educated and professional individuals) the right of re-entry once they have left for a period of study or employment abroad, where universities and places of work are not routinely disrupted and destroyed as part of an ongoing campaign to force the Araboushinf out.
Nor is this policy confined to the territories in the West Bank and Gaza. In one of his more restrained comments in July 1993, Yitzhak Rabin, the much-vaunted architect of peace, informed the Knesset that the invasion of Lebanon he had just launched was designed 'to create a wave of flight' of refugees, whose arrival in Beirut would put pressure on the government there to restrain the activities of Hezbollah. The fact that their attacks on Israeli settlements were in retaliation for the Israeli Defence Force shelling of Lebanese civilians was, of course, passed over, but the stated objective of the offensive was not; and most Israelis, if not Westerners, will recognise in Sharon's tactics a continuation of Rabin's strategy.
Emerson Roberts
London SW11
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