Editor,

Chris Samuel's letter soliciting support for Israel (Letters, Cambrian News, 8 April) contains so many false statements that one might be forgiven for thinking it had been penned by Benjamin Netanyahu under a pseudonym.

Israel is not, as claimed, the largest supplier of pharmaceuticals to the NHS. Approximately one-third of generic medicines are supplied by India, along with quarter of all medicines used by the NHS - about twice the quantities supplied by Israel. All generic medicines save money, so it is wrong to suggest there are special cost savings from Israeli products. However many generic products are made by multiple manufacturers. Thus consumers can choose between fungicidal cream for athlete's foot from Teva, which pays taxes to the genocidal government of Israel, or from GlaxoSmithKline which doesn't.

Israel has been responsible for starting most of the wars which it has fought. Between 18 December 1947 and March 1949 Zionist terrorists drove an estimated 750,000 - 900,000 Palestinians from their homes. More than 400 Arab towns and villages were deliberately destroyed, and more than 1.7 million hectares of land were appropriated, i.e. stolen. Arab families had been living on these lands for thousands of years, while their dispossessors were mostly immigrants from Europe and North America.

It is true that armies from five Arab nations joined the war against Israel in May 1945 but they were routed by a better trained Jewish army with superior equipment which had long prepared for this opportunity to eject Palestinians from their land on which to build the Zionist state.

In 1956 Israel joined a secret tripartite aggression pact with Britain and France, in a bid to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser. Israel attacked, overran and seized the Gaza Strip and the Sinai peninsula. Israeli prime minster David Ben-Gurion initially intended to keep all the conquered territory in defiance of the UN Charter, but was forced to withdraw by pressure from the United States. At Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, all civilian males of military age were ordered to go to a assembly points where they were summarily massacred by Israel's terrorist army. The bodies were left where they were shot.

Israel once more attacked its Arab neighbours in June 1967, this time permanently occupying the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Syria's Golan Heights and initially the Egyptian Sinai. According to Badil a further 400,000 Palestinians were displaced in the aftermath. In November of the same year the UN Security Council (UNSC) unanimously passed Resolution 242 demanding that Israel withdraw from all occupied territories. This was flagrantly ignored by Israel which continues to occupy most of these territories while illegally exploiting their resources and abusing the local populations.

In 1973 Egypt did attack Israel for the sole purpose of regaining its Sinai territory, where Israel had established illegal settlements and airbases, and stolen gas from local deposits. This attack was brutally repulsed by Israel, with assistance from the United States. The return of the Sinai was finally completed in 1989, more than eleven years after the UNSC had first issued its demand to the rogue state of Israel.

Since 2007 Israel has also imposed a cruel and illegal siege on Gaza from land and sea. This was intended to put the population (numbering over 2 million in 2023) "on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger", while simultaneously devastating the territory's economy.

Small wonder then that Palestinians sought to break out of their open-air prison on 7 October 2023. And while it is undeniable that horrific war crimes were committed in that operation it is also undeniable that Israeli propaganda has lied about the atrocities. There were no babies burned alive. There were no women raped. The Israeli army was also guilty of killing its own civilians with tanks and helicopter. Above all there is no justification for anyone, Chris Samuel included, to pretend that the 7 October attack was "the real genocide", as though the subsequent Israeli slaughter of many tens of thousands of civilian adults and children by all manner of inhumane methods is a minor event in comparison to the Palestinian attack.

Finally Mr Samuel's assertion that "anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are inseparable" overlooks the fact that tens of thousands of Jews worldwide oppose Zionism, often vehemently so. To ignore the honest beliefs of anti-Zionist Jews and associate them with Israel's on-going genocide and never-ending war crimes is itself antisemitic.

Israel is a racist, fascist, colonial project which has to be neutered in order that peace may finally prevail in west Asia.

Richard Lightbown,

Aberystwyth

Editor’s note: Say it like it is.

Editor,

The blocking of the Assisted Dying Bill by a tiny group in the House Of Lords was an affront to democracy. A small group of only 6-7 in the Lords put down over 1000 amendments not to scrutinise but to deliberately scupper the Bill. Spurious amendments such as everyone wishing to choose assisted dying must have a pregnancy test, yes everyone including a 90 year old man, really?

The Bill has been passed by Parliament and the Senedd and all opinion polls show over 70% of the country support it. Those opposing the Bill are on the wrong side of history as the Bill will be reintroduced and will become law.

We all agree there must be very strict safeguards to ensure such a bill when introduced is not abused or pressure is put on vulnerable people to end their life. That is already in the Bill and will be straightened before assisted dying becomes law.

Two of those opposing the bill Baroness Tani Grey-Thompson and Baroness Laura Finlay argue for better provision with palliative care. From my own experience seeing my beautiful daughter Jenny die last October the palliative care given to her by the team and doctors in Tywyn was excellent and could not have been better. Palliative care however can only take a person facing end of life so far along that dreadful journey then there comes the point of cruel suffering and distress. We would not allow an animal to go through such distress.

Author C.S. Lewis who wrote The Lion The Which and The Wardrobe said, “war does not increase death” It is equally true of assisted dying which would not increase death but greatly reduce pain, distress and suffering.

Mike Stevens,

Tywyn

Editor’s note: The effective killing of this Bill by a few Lords is appalling.