Deep roots
Sir: Having read William Dalrymple's account of Abu-Zeid's death with revul- sion ('Killing an Arab, 1 September), I think it would have been no more than appropriate if he had curbed his anti-Israel feelings for long enough to add a final paragraph giving the real reason for the uprooting of the village's olive groves by Israeli bulldozers and explaining that, if Arab roots in the soil are old and deep, Jewish roots are some 3,000 years older and therefore that much deeper. Accord- ing to the history books, there were no Arabs in the Land of Israel until the 7th century AD when they emerged from the Arabian desert to spread their new Islamic religion 'with fire and sword'.
Should Mr Dalrymple's crusading in- stincts be looking for a change of scenery, I would suggest he turn his attention to the destruction of Kurdish villages in northern Iraq or the plight of the Mohawk Indians in Canada who are desperately trying to save one of their sacred burial grounds from Canadian government bulldozers. It would no doubt be a particularly rewarding task to remind the civilised world that the Mohawks owned the land in dispute from time immemorial until, a few centuries ago, they were dispossessed and rounded up like so many heads of cattle by white colonialists who had no legal title but simply on the basis that might is right.
Ruth Willers
6 East Hill, Wembley Park, Middlesex
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