Israel is stoking up dire revenge from the children of Palestine

You try to look after your sister as best you can, but it’s difficult. Your tent is boiling hot in summer, cold in winter; it’s surrounded by thousands of other tents, with mounds of festering rubbish and pools of sewage in between. Nearby there are the ruins of some residential buildings, but it’s not safe to enter them because of the risk of collapse and the unexploded munitions they may contain. You miss your family and friends, your home and your school.

The Chinese proverb says that he who seeks revenge must dig two graves. But if you were that little boy, is it not possible that you will grow up with only one ambition: revenge against Israel? And that revenge would be wreaked on an easy target, probably an innocent Israeli citizen, quite possibly someone as shocked by the actions of the Israeli government as you are.

On April 13, 1919, Brigadier-general Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to open fire on a crowd peacefully assembled in Jallianwala Bagh, a garden area in Amritsar. Estimates of the fatalities range from almost 400 (British version) to over 1,000 (Indian National Congress). Dyer’s superior officer, General Michael O’Dwyer, supported the action. Almost 21 years later, on March 13, 1940, Udham Singh, a survivor of the massacre, shot and killed O’Dwyer in Caxton Hall in London; he also wounded the then Secretary of State for India.

That is the future Benjamin Netanyahu and his blood-soaked government are storing up for the people of Israel, and there may be spillover for Jews the world over. Thousands of young Palestinians will grow up with only one aim in life: revenge.

Doug Maughan, Dunblane.

The party that bans dissent

AN ongoing genocide in Gaza that has by now wiped out at least 200,000 civilians and wounded hundreds of thousands of others. A terror campaign against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank carried out by illegal settlers, aided by one of the world’s most advanced armies. The planting of explosives in pagers that have maimed and killed thousands of innocent people in Beirut. More than a thousand airstrikes in southern Lebanon that have murdered hundreds.

These are a few of the recent atrocities committed by the rogue state of Israel that the UK Government is arming and politically supporting.

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• How can Starmer, Rayner and the rest sleep at night?
• No sense in pointing your finger at Westminster, Mr Swinney

At yesterday’s Labour Party conference (September 23), a young man interrupted a preening Chancellor Reeves to protest the UK selling weapons to Israel. After he was tackled by security personnel, dragged from the hall and put into cuffs, Rachel Reeves, with a rictus smile, said: “This is a changed Labour Party. A Labour Party that represents working people, not a party of protests.”

No truer words were spoken. Labour is a party that allows no protests, no dissent from the Starmerite party line, that shuts down voices demanding justice for the poor, the old, children, the disabled and the persecuted. No doubt influenced by Labour Friends of Israel, it has banned the words "genocide" and "apartheid" from its party conference.

It is embracing the draconian 2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, the 1986 Public Order Act and the 2023 Serious Disruption Regulations passed by Tory governments that suppress and silence dissent.

If Scotland is to have any chance of escape from this dystopia and regain its international voice, it knows what it has to do.

Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh.

• JOHN Milne (Letters, September 24) and I are fairly different people given his strong religious beliefs, but when it comes to concern for the difficulties for people in foreign lands such as Ukraine, Gaza and others we are not that different. His letters are usually well thought-out but I think that he is wide of the mark in thinking that those of us who believe in an independent Scotland are indifferent to ongoing injustices elsewhere.

Unfortunately, there is very little that any of us can do about such matters given the hypocrisy of governments including both the United States and the United Kingdom. On the other hand, it is possible to make progress towards to Scottish independence if enough people can be persuaded to vote in its favour.

Gordon Evans, Burnside.

Let's have honesty about Scotland

THE SNP is running a major propaganda campaign to vilify the Starmer Government for withdrawing the Winter Fuel Payment from most pensioners, to save money. The SNP depends on most Scots not being aware that Winter Fuel Payments are devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Before Rachel Reeves made her announcement on this subject, the Scottish Government had already planned to introduce a new benefit, the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment.

If the SNP Government claims that it needs extra money from HM Treasury to pay for this benefit and is having to reduce the numbers of those eligible for it, it is admitting that Scotland depends on the UK to fund its benefits and that a separate Scotland would not be able to afford them.

Let’s have some honesty about funding in Scotland, if that is not too much to ask.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh.

Redefinition of socialist values

A headline on your front page today tells us "Starmer to promise 'light at the end of the tunnel''' in his speech to the Labour Party conference (The Herald, September 24). It is not clear from the reported content of his speech if we need a set of his expensive designer specs to see this light, or whether, indeed, it might not be a light at all, but a train coming. Pensioners losing out on winter fuel payments may fear the latter, and they have little leeway for getting out of the way.

Never mind, on Page 4, Anas (Watch my lips) Sarwar is confident Scotland's best days lie ahead ("Scottish Labour is going places judging by conference", The Herald, August 24). There is a significant test of trust here, following the freebies bonanza, with its blatant hypocrisy and stark redefinition of socialist values. The "no return to austerity" mantra is wearing thin, and rings hollow, given that, in reality, austerity hasn't gone away.

Dr Angus Macmillan, Dumfries.

A dispensable cohort

WITH the now-confirmed withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners and the predictions that the method of taxing cars will change with fuel duty definitely increasing and also an increase in vehicle excise tax with perhaps the introduction of a pay per mile charge instead of or in addition to the excise tax, there are some very naive questions that I would like to ask.

If it has been found that the previous government left office with a very large deficit in the public accounts, why is the general adult population, who did not create the deficit, being obliged to pay for it?

Austerity started this time round when New Labour relaxed the rules governing the financial section of the economy. The free for all that followed coupled with the bonus culture is now a matter of history. And the austerity policies that were imposed and that are continuing for the foreseeable future, apparently have just become a government tool.

Rachel Reeves made it clear yesterday in her speech to the Labour Conference that workers would be the driving force of economic growth. This is as it should be, but right now I get the impression that pensioners are being treated as expendable. As part of of the fuel allowance cancellation, has there been a calculation that those who may have died from either coldness or starvation or a combination of both will have been a price worth paying as the reduced pension payments will in part help to reduce the alleged financial black hole inherited from the Tory government? It may also help to fund some of the recent pay settlements, in many cases deserved, that have been agreed with unions. Will improved productivity result?

I remain cynical and suspicious that I am now part of a cohort that apparently, being retired, has become dispensable.

Ian Gray, Croftamie.

Are the elderly to be regarded as expendable? (Image: PA)

Waiting for death?

I RECENTLY discovered that I have a serious issue with my heart. My GP kindly sent a referral to Cardiology within the Greater Glasgow Health Board last week marked urgent. I discovered today that there is a waiting list of 23 weeks before I get to see a cardiologist, let alone get treatment. I rather feel that the National Health Service has shunted me into the National Death Service.

Mair Crouch, Glasgow.