9 AUGUST 1975, Page 5

Israel and the UN

Sir: May I endorse the sentiments expressed by Maurice Samuelson in The Spectator of July 26 ('Good place to be expelled from'), and add that it is surely most appropriate that Israel, the successor to the ancient Jewish state from which were first proclaimed to the world the ideals of justice, liberty, universal brotherhood and the rights of man, should be threatened with expulsion from a world body supposedly founded on, but becoming increasingly estranged from, these principles.

No people more than the Jews, whose `particularism' ties in their 'universalism', has so persistently upheld and sought fulfilment of these messianic longings. If the Jewish state which, with all its faults, comes nearer the hoped-for ideal, then many of those who sit in judgement on her, is expelled, then it will surely be symptomatic of a deep malaise afflicting mankind.

S. Goodman

77 Kinglsey Road, Kingswinford. West Midlands