Re: "CUPE, church should be ashamed," Claire Hoy, July 6:

With all due respect, what is Israel's right to exist where it is? Palestine was invaded by the west and a foreign people

were given their country. They did not have the means to defend against what was done to them.

How would you feel today if another country invaded part of Canada and claimed it for someone else?

What is the claim of the Jews to that territory? The only claim is Biblical. And God, just before they entered the promised land, looked down the timeline of history and said that they would repeatedly disobey Him and ultimately be removed from the very land He gave them.

Deut 31:16-18:

16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.

17 Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day. Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?

18 And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.

(King James version)

We are constantly looking at this conflict in a current context but we must view it in the fullness of history.

If a country invades another country today we send in troops to remove them. If the Jews asked us to do this for them today it would not happen. The world would not accept it.

So why do we still accept it. It was and is wrong.

The Jews were offered another territory by the British but they rejected it saying that there can be no Zionism without Zion.

Don't think I am antiSemitic. In fact, I have some Jewish heritage.

Steve Phillips North Dundas, Ont.