LETTER: Column misquoted in anger

It is ironic that in the seeming confidence of his fury Sydney Kaye so badly misquotes my column and then builds so feeble an argument on the resulting falsity (“War is Israel’s only choice”, September 30).

Perhaps before flying off the handle he should strive to put his rage aside, get his facts straight and make an effort to assess it more rationally. Had he done this in the first place he would have noticed — as I am sure most level-headed readers did — that the quote he places in the mouth of Al Jazeera columnist Belén Fernández was actually the idea expressed by Thomas Friedman (who, as I pointed out, Fernández detests).

In this light the warning (from Friedman, not Fernández) that “Israel is imperilling decades of diplomacy to get the world to recognise the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination and self-defence in their historic homeland”, ought to be weighed more seriously.

Instead, by asserting that “for some bizarre reason Morris chooses to quote Al Jazeera columnist Belén Fernández, a mouthpiece for Israel’s terrorist enemies, to reinforce his argument”, and that “Morris and Al Jazeera may think Israel should sacrifice itself on the altar of so-called centuries [sic] of diplomacy, which is to them more important than Israel’s right to live in peace and security and free from the threat of a new extermination”, Kaye only makes himself look ridiculous and almost certainly helps confirm the risk of letting rage batter reason.

Michael Morris
Institute of Race Relations

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