LETTERS Interviewing evil
Sir: The recent Hamas atrocities in Israel have brought to the fore the woolliness and defeatism of the great and good in this country. Typically, Simon Jenkins claimed in the Times (6 March): 'In Israel, a peace settlement reached after two decades of conflict is now jeopardised by just three bombs.' Actually there were four bombs, the conflict predates the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, the peace settlement is only in the process of negotiation and it is not in jeopardy, but is merely delayed.
Some leading Muslims disassociate them- selves from the Hamas savagery but what do most of them suggest? International conferences against terrorism and 'political solutions'. Of such conferences one can only say, 'It is magnificent but it is not war'.
As for political solutions, I have heard some Arab commentators like Mr Aburich and Mr A.B. Atwan arguing that Hamas should not be marginalised but drawn into the negotiation efforts. I disagree, but they have a strong point. A few years ago the PLO were also treated as outcasts, yet they managed to bomb their way to diplomatic respectability. Today, Hamas has a large following — some 100,000 thronged and wailed behind the coffin of the Engineer a much admired mass murderer. His timely demise was deplored by even moderate Arabs as 'an act of Israeli provocation'!
Above all, Hamas and their apologists realise that the standard Western response to terrorism is appeasement. Thus in Ger- many condemned bombers were quietly released before the expiration of their prison terms. Some time ago, France struck similar deals. Recently, Italy granted parole to one of the Achille Lauro murderers — he duly absconded. When Israel temporarily deported several hundred Hamas a few years ago, the world media was up in arms about their plight and, alas, they were allowed to return to a heroes' welcome.
One of the most insidious forms of appeasement flourishes on our own radio and television news and current affairs pro- grammes. Their basic policy is called 'even- handedness' and consists in allowing equal time to those who explain or excuse the IRA and Hamas and those who oppose them tooth and nail. If programmes like Newsnight and Channel 4 News are not pre- pared to change this deferential treatment of evil, then their amoral conception of impartiality should be curbed by legislation. In the meantime, we are frequently assured by 'interpreters' of extremists that if we only gave into their demands the bombing would cease.
Most recent appeals for 'calm' were code for sitting on our hands. 'Cool heads' have an infinite capacity to shake disapprovingly at terror, but never the will to shake the guilty. What can be more pathetic than this week's spectacle of high-powered Euro- pean delegations crawling cravenly from Tripoli to Teheran, pleading with the local puppeteers to disown the atrocities of their own puppets?
Lionel Bloch
9 Wimpole Street, London W1
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