Letters.

ISRAELI ARCHITECTURE: ARM OF APARTHEID?

SIR: Tom Kay's straightforward eyewitness account from Ramallah (AR May, p32) seems to have outraged those (mainly Israeli) readers who want their architecture unsullied by images of destruction. Such images have sadly become a more than occasional occurrence in urban conflicts around the world, making it a valid subject for comment in the AR. The photograph and caption of sunglasses were rather unfortunate, but in fact did not convey the true extent of the wanton destruction by the Israeli Army of the security, civic, domestic, cultural, social and medical infrastructure of every historic West Bank city (except Jericho), using sledgehammers, bulldozers, tanks, Apache helicopters and Fl6s. The blindfolding and stamping of numbers on Palestinian males who have been rounded up and many of whom are now in administrative detention in torrid desert jails, the flouting of international law and the Geneva Convention, the imprisonment and siege of a whole population in the West Bank and Gaza, the encirclement by chec kpoints, barbed wire, electrified fences and concrete walls along borders, the rampages by fanatical settlers, do recall images of events experienced by those who were once victims of Nazism. I, as a jew, find this painful, but cannot say, 'I did not know.'

It is understandable that Israelis (and most normal humans) feel shattered at the devastation caused by the suicide bombers in Israeli cities. Such killings have been condemned by human rights organizations like B'tselem and Amnesty as much as the war crimes committed by the IDF. But the compassion of your correspondents seems one-sided. They do not wish to acknowledge the damage caused by the Occupation, which, with the recent near-continual curfew for 700,000 Palestinians under collective 'house arrest' has become a huge humanitarian crisis of starvation, destitution, disease and the total breakdown of economic, social and civilian life. Children cannot go to school, their parents cannot go to work. Three times as many Palestinians as Israelis have been killed, and tens of thousands injured, many of them children. The extra-judicial assassinations of their leaders, the high-tech weaponry used on civilians, and the lack of hope for peace, have been the root of the horrific suicide bombings and militant Pales tinian resistance. Sharon's deliberate instigation of retaliation feeds his ultimate agenda of a permanent delay to a Palestinian state and possible transfer of the Palestinians from the West Bank.

Un Zrubavel, President of the Israeli Association of United Architects, seems annoyed that the AR should publish an article that deviated from pure architecture (AR August, p23). He it was who prevented Eyal Weizman and Rafi Segal's excellent and courageous entry for the UJA Expo -- The Politics of Israeli Architecture -- being shown, on the grounds that the IAUA 'represents its members in regard to their profession and not in regard to the political aspect'. Yet Israeli architects are the architectural arm of the Israeli government's apartheid policies in their design and construction of illegal towns and settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, creating the key element inflaming the Intifada. Architects with a social conscience would have said no.

Yours etc

ABE HAYEEM

London, England

DISBELIEF

SIR: Somewhat belatedly, we have been sent a copy of the 'View from Ramallah' article. As the representative body of the British Jewish community, we have received a number of complaints about it from Jewish people in many parts of the world.

We read the article with growing disbelief. It is bad enough that the author can find it in himself to write an article so filled with hostility towards Israel, but like the rest of us, Tom Kay is entitled to his opinion. What we find extraordinary is that it should have found a place in your journal. What on earth has its content to do with architecture? Is yours a journal that will publish anything, however crass or irrelevant, as long as it is written by an architect? Mr Kay's article is entirely one-sided and subjective. It has no architectural content or relevance whatsoever. A political article of this kind has no place in a professional magazine.

There is no attempt to mention, let alone explain, the background or the context in which Israel moved into Ramallah following the shocking massacre of Jews at a religious ceremony in Netanya in March. It is particularly disturbing that Mr Kay makes the odious comparison between the actions of Israel in seeking to root Out terrorist cells in Ramallah and the mass murder of Jews at Auschwitz. Such comparisons are calculated to diminish the significance of the Holocaust and to dehumanize Jewish people. This undoubtedly creates a climate in which expressions of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incidents become more prevalent It is shameful to see a journal such as yours contributing to such an outcome.

I notice from your website that around 80 people have already written to complain about the inappropriate nature of this article. I should welcome your assurance that its publication was an unfortunate lapse which will not be repeated.

Yours etc

NEVILLE NAGLER

Director General, The Board of Deputies of British Jews, London, England

SPEAKING OUT AGAINST DESTRUCTION

SIR: As an ex-resident of Ramallah from 1994-98, I would like to emphasize that Mr Kay's article asserted nothing that was not typical during my experience. It was a description of reality as cold as the metaphorical bucket of water that we, outside the country, clearly need poured over us in our slumber.

Those interested in learning more can find information about Israel's March/April 2002 destruction of Ramallab and other Palestinian towns -- compiled from a variety of Palestinian, Israeli and international governmental and non-governmental sources -- at http://electronicIntifada.net/features/destruction/

The readers of your magazine have dedicated their lives to creating and building. We should realize that speaking out against such destruction and demolition is merely part and parcel of the same calling.

Yours etc,

NIGEL PARRY

St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

ISRAEL TO BE COMMENDED

SIR: Israel is to be commended for its action against Salah Shehadeh. Here was a man, an acknowledged terrorist, leading a terrorist organization (Hamas), that had a long history of attacking civilians. How to stop this ongoing terrorism? By eliminating the 'head of the snake'. Yes, my fellow civilians, just that! Think it through, please. An Israeli warplane, flying in the dead of the night (after midnight), aiming for and hitting a single apartment in Gaza, all while zipping along at hundreds of miles per hour. Precision? Yes! This can be likened to putting anti-aircraft artillery on the roof of the hospital, and then complaining when the hospital is hit and civilians are killed! injured. For Shehadeh to live at home, with his family, is to recklessly put his family and others in danger. Oh shame on you Israel, for defending yourself. As I said, Israel is to be commended for its exquisite intelligence work in locating the proper apartment, its well-trained air force, and for limiting the casualties as it ha s. They have done a good job.

Yours etc

JIM TIERNEY

West Hartford, Connecticut, USA

FEEDING ANTI-SEMITISM

SIR: Your one-sided propaganda to create unwarranted hatred towards the Jews and Israel is feeding anti-Semitism in England. You are not balanced in your articles, you don't edit unsubstantiated falsehoods, your act of being fair and balanced is a travesty of journalism. Because you got a Jew to write these falsehoods only shows your ingenuity in feeding anti-Semitism. You call yourself an editor? You're an editor who feeds the European anti-Semitism sweeping your country. Your anti-Jewish crap is offensive. STOP IT NOW!

Yours etc

RICHARD ALLEN

New York, USA

STICK TO ARCHITECTURE

SIR: I'm not sure I understand why you bothered publishing 'View from Ramallah'. With less than one fourth of the article even mentioning architecture or, for that matter, home furnishing, it was little more than Palestinian propaganda. There was no context explaining why Israel invaded Ramallah and there were despicably absurd attempts to compare Israel's defence against terrorism with the Holocaust. As for the reason the IDF bulldozed walls, your readers should have been told that the Palestinians booby-trapped roads, doors and alleys in other cities. Rather than indiscriminately bomb Palestinian terrorist nests, (as the US did in Afghanistan), the IDF surprised the Palestinians - and Tom Kay - by going around these potential traps. Stick to architecture. Your readers have plenty of other resources for politics and propaganda.

Yours etc

SAM SAAL

via email

BRITISH GUILT

SIR: Not only was I amazed at the incredible lack of anything architectural about Tony Kay's View From Ramallah, I am amazed at how a British magazine would have the audacity to publish something so inaccurate, mendacious, and without any memory that it is in fact the English who bear responsibility for the current situation. The scattered eyeglasses on the floor may somehow inexplicably remind Mr Kay of Auschwitz but perhaps he ought to be reminded how those murdered wound up at Auschwitz. They were denied entry to Palestine by the English who sought to curry favour with the Arabs. Perhaps the eyeglasses should have reminded Mr Kay of the Jews who died at sea in the Exodus or the Struma because England would not take them, or the Jews of the St Louis who couldn't enter Britain because they had too many Jews already. Please publish articles about architecture. Mr Kay is an ignorant terrorism apologist who, unable to get his mendacious views published in a legitimate journal, sneaks them into an all-too-willin g-to-forget English journal on architecture. When you are willing to publish articles dealing with how you closed the doors of the British Mandate of Palestine to Jews and left them to be gassed at Auschwitz I'll be willing to read your opinions on Ramallah.

Yours etc

JONATHAN D REICH

Lakeland, Florida, USA

It is ridiculous to suppose that we are anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic because we published an article critical of Israel's behaviour in the West Bank.

This correspondence must now close on paper. People who wish to continue the discussion electronically should go to our website at www.arplus.com. We cannot guarantee to print all letters received, particularly in cases of repetition.

THE EDITOR