Your view: Letters to the Editor

Constable Sheryll Pearce stopped a people mover on Auckland's Northern Motorway. Crammed into the seven-seat Nissan were 13 members of an extended family.

Bathing in it

Maybe the cause of water quality degradation is intensive dairy farming in some areas, and maybe it isn't in others, but the maxim "post hoc ergo propter hoc" can very easily apply to Rachel Stewart's statement, "the degradation curve corresponds perfectly with the nation's steady increase in cow numbers" (Opinion, March 1).

It would be worth researching the correlation of that curve to the steady increase in human numbers perhaps.

What is the E. coli count in the average bath?

Stan Russell
Katikati

A history lesson

In January you published my letter concerning a book documenting Israeli soldiers' concern at the way their country bullies and oppresses Palestinians in the "occupied territories".

A friend then gave me a book called From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters which is an excellent documentary on the history of Israel/Palestine with particular reference to the 20th century.

This revealed to me that in 1948 when United Nations supported the creation of the State of Israel there were more Jewish immigrants into Israel who one way or the other were forced to leave neighbouring Arab countries where they had lived for generations than there were Jews coming out of Europe.

This was a resettlement issue, but the neighbouring Arab countries made no effort to accept the people we know as Palestinians back into their ancestral countries. Most of the Jews leaving neighbouring Arab countries had to forfeit their land, houses and many possessions.

Further, chapters going back several hundred years before, clearly shows that the Jews, and Christians, were second class citizens in most Arab countries.

Joan Peters demonstrates that the 1980 UN Resolution 465 together with the recent 2334, were flawed being a significant modification against the Jews from the resolutions of the League of Nations in the 1920s.

With this background, I better understand why Israel is determined to keep the territories it gained in the 1967 war, and why they are being settled.

For all sorts of historical reasons, the two-state solution will not work.
(Abridged)

Bill Capamagian
Tauranga

You're a legend

Constable Sheryll Pearce who recently apprehended 13 in the vehicle but sent them to get child restraints instead of a massive probably unpayable fine.

Common sense prevailed.

Your blood should be bottled. You're a legend.
(Abridged)

A D (Tony) Kirby
Papamoa