I WAS pleased to read in your editorial ("It is time for Israel and Hamas to start talking", The Herald, July 30) your recognition of the need for Israel to be prepared to talk to Hamas, but disappointed you repeated the current narrative that Hamas is responsible for the current conflict.

I have worked with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Israel/Palestine and from a non-violent background I deplore all violence, whether from militias or army. I have experienced the daily round for Palestinians in the West Bank at the hands of the Israeli occupying army, checkpoints, house demolitions, land confiscation, tear gas and far worse and I have visited Sderot, spoken to residents there and seen the spent cases of rockets.

It is too easy to choose the rocket attacks as the starting point of this conflict. They need to be seen in the context of the seven-year siege of Gaza and the long-term occupation of the West Bank. Even during the last peace talks, there were settler attacks and Israeli military raids and Palestinians were arrested, injured or killed while settlement building continued apace. More recently, although Israel knew Hamas was not responsible for the abduction of the three students, Palestinian homes in the West Bank were raided, personal property damaged or confiscated, people arrested and others killed.

Despite its charter, Hamas is on record as being willing to talk with Israel and accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 agreed borders. During the recent conflict it offered a 10-year truce in return for a 10-point plan which addressed Israel's security, the siege and Gaza's needs for the future. This has been ignored.

Those with experience in Northern Ireland and resolution of intractable conflicts stress the need for the involvement of the international community and not just America, the inclusion of all parties both Israeli and Palestinian, and import­antly, a level playing field for negotiations to end the siege and the occupation and provide security and a positive future for both Israelis and Palestinians. A return to the status quo yet again will not suffice.

Kate Aspinwall,

John Brogan Place, Stevenston.

IN other news, scores of Chinese civilians and policemen have been killed in China. Who killed them? Where are the bloody pictures, the children and mothers crying, the sheer horror?

Hundreds of civilians killed in Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine and more, hundreds of thousands killed in total. Who killed them? Why no dash to the hospital to catch the latest casualties? Where's the on-the-spot reporters bringing you, breathlessly and with much gnashing of teeth, the official response from the warring factions?

Children kidnapped, heads decapitated, activists hanged, collaborators shot. Mass slaughter going on under the very noses of the UN. Who's doing it? Where's the condemnation , the UN resolutions, the " humanitarian" organisations press releases, the boycotts and flotillas?

Certainly, all human suffering, including that of the women, men and children in Gaza, is terrible. Yet of all the conflicts around the world, as alluded to in this letter, the only one you hear about in the nightly news and in the newspapers, is the one between Israel and Hamas. Why is that?

Do we truly care so little about millions of Christians under dire threat - the most threatened religious grouping on the planet - across great swathes of the Middle East, North Africa, Iran , North Korea and more that we turn a blind eye to their suffering?

Have we become so inured to the gross, despicable, inhumane anti-semitic rants of racist mobs all across Europe and North America that we don't see the threat to the very fabric of our society?

If we truly can't join the dots, and see the writing once again on the wall; if in our determination to be so very post-colonial/post-Christian/ultra-PC we aren't prepared to call out the perpetrators of all the above listed horrors and abominations then, quite simply, God help us.

Elliot Davis,

The Countryhouse,

Kilmarnock.

EARLIER this week I went to see the Israeli show The City at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I believe in the right to peaceful protest, but this was something else; this was frightening.

A crowd of people were screaming and shouting in my face, chanting at me: "There is blood on your tickets" and wilfully intimidating the public in the hope that they would be too afraid to go in. Mostly it worked. A small number of people, including five bewildered girls, ran the gauntlet with help from the police. The venue staff were wonderful and tried to offer some sympathy. " Is this Scotland ?" I thought. "Did I just get villified for going to a theatre performance?"

I am not ignorant of the current situation in Israel/Palestine. It is one of many conflicts that rage throughout the globe. However, it is time for people to do some soul-searching. The Israeli show is the only one that will be forced to shut down at the Fringe this year. At the recent Palestine Solidarity Campaign demonstrations in France there were shocking outbreaks of anti-semitism and in London placards that read "Hitler was right". How easily passion can turn dark.

I wonder how the Scottish public going to the Fringe will respond? Will they congratulate the protesters on their success at shutting these artists down, or (if another safer venue can be found) will the public dare to run the gauntlet like I did?

Christine Muir,

Kings Park,

Torrance, Glasgow.