I DON'T think Israel realises that public opinion is now the most potent force in world politics. (I don't think the USA realises it either, but that's another letter.) Nor does Israel realise that it has already lost the battle for public opinion in its struggle with Palestine because of its implacable allegiance to its biblical traditions.

There will never be peace in Israel for as long as Israel practises a policy of a life for an eye or tooth and 10 lives for a life, using guns against stones, tanks and planes against guns, and soldiers against children.

Throughout most of its history the Jewish nation has been at the receiving end of racism, exemplified at its culmination in the heinous Hitlerian holocaust. Now it seems to have learned its lesson, practising (to no matter how limited an extent) what it has been taught.

At this point in time, Israel appears to want to give racism a good name.

Bernard Fawl, Queensway, Blackpool.