Denying existence of Palestinians

Nurit Modai (Letters, Jul 6) now seeks to deny the existence of Palestinians.

Though her letter is hugely insulting to Palestinians (they do in fact exist) and is riddled with outlandish and erroneous assertions, it is instructive inasmuch as it gives an insight into the mindset of a diplomatic official in what purports to be the “only democracy in the Middle East”. Of course, many readers will already be aware of such duplicity.

Israeli television station Channel 10 recently reported, based on a diplomatic communiqué, that Deputy Ambassador Nurit Modai seeks to silence Israelis that speak up for the rights of Palestinians. She suggests working “directly against those Israeli activists, [to] humiliate and shame them.” In order to do so she proposes publishing photos that could cause embarrassment to them: “you have to try and hit their soft underbellies, to publish their photographs, maybe that will cause embarrassment from their friends in Israel and their family, hoping that local activists would understand that they may actually be working on behalf of Mossad [Israel’s spy agency].”