LETTER: Navalny and Gaza: good men need to act

As the saying goes, all that’s required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing. A lot of good men have been doing nothing of late (“Murder most foul gives rise to a martyr”, February 19).

Alexei Navalny is the most recent victim of Russian tyranny, together with hundreds of others, many unnoticed by the world. While autocrats sharpen their knives in many places, the West seems impotent to challenge them.

Vladimir Putin now gives fireside chats about his version of the “red terror”, which Soviet dissenter Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn told us about decades ago. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is busy building his own version of the Warsaw ghetto in Gaza, while his allies look on in horror, unable to stop the slaughter.

Meanwhile, in the US Donald Trump, whose Art of the Deal has been rephrased in court to Art of the Steal, at the end of one of his many trials, is still a serious contender for president despite being pro-Putin and anti-Nato. A writer of fiction would need some gall to make this up, yet here we are, looking down the barrel of a madman’s gun.

However, the unexpected does happen. Perhaps US Republicans will wake up to the danger of their desperately parochial politics, send Putin back where he belongs, and remind Israel that its existence depends on the goodwill of its friends. I’ll leave North Korea and Iran to those who can sleep at night despite everything.

Bernard Benson
Parklands

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