Letter to the Editor: Michael Heylings, Mitcheldean makes a valid comparison. Gaza cannot be compared with the Forest of Dean.

I would go further and say it is not our business to comment on the Israel Palestine conflict which has now been going on for close to a century not just October 2023.

History texts define Palestine as the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, and has been controlled by many kingdoms and powers, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient Israel and Judah, the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great and his successors, the Hasmoneans, the Roman Empire, several Muslim caliphates, and the crusaders. 

Very difficult to define boundaries clearly on desert sands  populated by nomadic Bedus and other tribes.

Like it or not, most of today’s nations in Europe, and Asia came out of wars and revolutions in the 19th and 20th centuries.

All of today’s nation states in the Americas came about from the migration of Europeans following Columbus’ discovery of the New World and exploitation and elimination of local populations. 

Needless to say human history shows all forms of migration, invasion, enslavement, and, violence between people.

That Israel was founded on land where historically Palestinians and also Jewish and other tribes may have lived in the past has to be accepted.

Britain took the land over from the Turkish Empire in 1917/18 and allowed Jewish settlers in the 1930s and 40s when anti-Jewish discrimination was rife in Europe culminating in the extermination camps and gas chambers in Nazi Germany.

Israel came about following World War Two; so did many other countries in the world in the 1940s and  50s from past Empires.

The land of Palestine never had a functioning government. 

Even today the Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza cannot be called proper governments. 

Much oftheir expenses come out of UN and other humanitarian donations. 

HAMAS, a terror group, has been using these funds arming themselves and trying to damage Israel rather than looking after the Palestinians.

Jewish immigrants on the other hand, established a properly functioning democratic government on the land they called Israel. 

What the Israelis did to green the desert land through hard work is to be praised.

The carnage taking place in Gaza following the HAMAS invasion and murders and abduction of Israelis is truly horrifying. 

I can only say the Palestinians led by HAMAS brought it on themselves. 

Israel will get credit if it is able to destroy HAMAS a rerrorist group that claims to be the government of Gaza despite there being no democratic elections there since January 2006.

Hopefully the Palestinians one day will have their own country but they will have to first prove they are fit to govern it themselves.

Venk Shenoi, Blaisdon