How many deaths justify retaliation?

Sir,

If ever a letter was designed to stir up hatred and anti-Israeli sentiment (‘The ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people’, Sunday Mail, January 4), your reader’s letter from Larnaca certainly tried very hard.

This type of propaganda was censored and eventually banned over 20 years ago when the BNP put out this sort of dangerous garbage.

Israel has had rocket attacks on a daily basis for over seven years now, but as your reader states these were just “irritating” and only a couple of dozen Israelis were killed. What figure would she have liked – a few hundred or a few thousand maybe, before she considers Israel has the right to defend itself and its people.

If another country were to send up to two hundred rockets into Cyprus, and everyone had to go into air-raid shelters with about thirty seconds notice – wouldn’t this be “irritating”?
How many Cypriots, or others, would have to be killed before Cyprus was justified in defending itself? Far less that two dozen I suspect.

Let us pray that these “mosquitoes” do not hit Larnaca. Your reader could try citronella but I am sure tanks would be more effective.

It seems that every country has the right to defend itself except Israel.

Alan Saunders,
Argaka, Paphos

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.