A. P. TOBIAS's letter headed "Arab aggressors are crying foul" (Your Letters, October 13) says a lot about the people who claim the high moral ground in the bloody turmoil which continues to blight the holiest of lands and the people condemned to live with neighbours not of their choosing.

How could anyone try to justify the killing of a twelve-year-old child by claiming that he may have been throwing stones, or by commenting on which way he was facing as he crouched in obvious terror, desperately trying to hide from the guns which faced him?

He was a child, an innocent, no matter who may have coerced him to do wrong (if wrong he had done). I cannot believe the same would have happened in a civilised society. Are there no men in those lands, men who are just and who value life and the innocence of children?

I despair that people like A. P. Tobias inhabit our world. His like will always ensure there is war and dominance of one group of people by another.

Given the time since the men they worship and follow are said to have walked the land they fight over, it is amazing that within a century, one race seems to have forgotten its own history as they seek to enforce their way through their brutality and superior forces.

MIKE CORNER,

Walmersley Old Road, Bury.