From Paul Smith re "Bush endorses greater Israel".

In your June 2004 Catholic Insight editorial, the editor claims that Israel has not made a sincere effort toward establishing peace in the last forty years. This means Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was murdered for doing something he had never intended to be successful. I cannot agree with this.

When Pope John Paul I was pontiff, for only a little over a month, it was suspected by some that he was murdered. There was even a movie (Godfather lid that included the murder of Pope John Paul I. I put accusations of a settler in Israel murdering Yitzak Rabin with his consent, on a near par with accusations of the Vatican murdering Pope John Paul I, except that Pope John Paul I never gave his consent.

Has the state of Israel, purposely put her people in danger for the sake of phoney peace negotiations? Have all the suicide bombings been a sacrifice, so Israel can build a wall across her country? Did Fr. Alphonse de Valk begin Catholic Insight magazine to get fewer subscribers?

Please retract your statements about the Israeli government's logic, and I will be convinced that you are back on track.

Saskatoon, SK

The editor replies:

You can raise all the rhetorical questions you want, but the fact remains that from 1967 onwards a number of Israel's Prime Ministers, supported by a variety of cabinet ministers and parties, succeeded in diverting massive sums of money to establish "facts on the ground," i.e. Jewish settlements on the West Bank. They did this against the wishes of the Palestinians, the United Nations and, for a long time, those of American presidents. Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was an exception. He sought reconciliation with Palestinians in the "Land for Peace" plan, which settlers opposed. That's why he was murdered.