From Mr Chris Doyle Sir: Your leading article (8 December)
neatly puts all blame for the violence in the Middle East on the shoulders of President Arafat. He is indeed to blame for a lack of leadership and for other failings, but I doubt that he could now stop a single suicide bomber. Arafat is holed up in his Ramallah headquarters, his forces bombed, yet somehow he is expected to control 3.5 million Palestinians living under fire, under occupation and in economic deprivation. It is ridiculous that an occupied people are expected to provide the security for the occupier. Yet Arafat, fighting for his survival, does need to present a coherent strategy for his people, and a real vision for a future Palestinian state.
But it is Sharon who largely controls events. Palestinian leaders are assassinated; Hamas responds with an outrage. After making demands that he knows are impossible to fulfil, Sharon targets the Palestinian Authority. Arafat tries to arrest Hamas supporters, actions that only swell Hamas's popularity as it feeds off the brutal Israeli responses. Consequently, it is the actions of the Israeli forces and Hamas that set the agenda.
Sharon wants to ensure that no Palestinian state can come into being, an agenda he has consistently pursued even before 1982. Hence, he has closed down Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, in his view for good, expanded settlements and confiscated land in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that he intends to annex to Israel. Sharon wants to end Arafat because he wants to end the dream of Palestinian nationhood. If he truly wanted to end terrorism, then Sharon would have adopted totally different policies. The Israeli finance minister, Silvan Shalom, summed up Sharon's policy perfectly: 'Between Hamas and Arafat, I prefer Hamas.'
Chris Doyle
Senior Press Officer, Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, London SW5
drubbing my recent biography Iris Murdoch: A Life, explained that Dame Iris Murdoch was not an intellectual heavyweight but 'a scatty Catherine Cookson with bits of undergraduate philosophy thrown in', her life a 'farcical cat's cradle of affairs and crushes that made little sense'.
Twelve years ago — by contrast — he wrote at great length in the Telegraph (Weekend Magazine, 8 July 1989) of his friendship with Murdoch. Over the years he had come to 'adore' encounters with 'one of Britain's greatest living novelists [who was] entering a period of astonishing creativity'. He proudly boasted that he spent his Christmases with her.
Neither Lewis's praise nor his dispraise count for much: Murdoch's death wiped out both his loyalty and her talent.
Peter Cortradi
London SW4
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