Led astray: Letters, 23 December

The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Here you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.

Led astray by frightful ignorance of history

"There will be peace in our time" - those who read about real history will remember when those words were spoken, maybe only some months before World War II.

By those who wanted to ignore all the signs of Hitler getting ready for war.

We all know about the results of that ignoring.

So, two days ago, we read: "So why should Iran not have nuclear weapons?"

Serious or tongue-in-cheek, but some people are actually defending that.

If it was not so deadly serious it would be a laugh, but the ignorance is too frightening.

And then pointing the finger at Israel as "the real danger", stoking the fires of rampant anti-Semitism. Which nation would stand by idly when they have 1000 rockets fired at them within one week, as happens from Gaza?

Once again, the ignorance is highly disturbing.

Next we will hear the mantra in our papers that "the Holocaust never happened", with which today the Palestinian people and children are being brainwashed by terrorist leaders.

Who is getting deluded? Wake up, people of New Zealand.

Adrian Vannoppen, Welcome Bay

Cause of unrest

Re: Mary Brooks' assault on US presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich (Letters, December 19).

To say that Palestine became part of the Ottoman Empire in the 4th century is laughable. The Ottoman Empire began in 1299.

Further, the British did not "hand over Palestinian land to the Israelis". The mandate granted to Britain after World War I by the League of Nations was handed back to the United Nations in 1947, after World War II.

The UN set up a Special Committee on Palestine (Unscop) which recommended to the UN General Assembly that the Palestine Mandate territory be partitioned to form an Arab state and a Jewish state. The relevant resolution, UNGA 181, was passed with a two-thirds majority on November 29, 1947. The Jews accepted this, the Arab nations and the Palestinian Arabs rejected it and invaded the new Jewish state on the day after Israel declared its independence.

I agree with Mary Brooks that there has been unrest and bloodshed since, and suffering for the Palestinian people, because they refused in 1947 and still refuse to accept the Jewish state, and did not set up their Arab state.

It seems that Mary Brooks is of the same mind, thus helping perpetuate the Palestinians' self-inflicted suffering.

David Zwartz, Wellington