JAMES Young’s strange polemic (“Have Your Say, January 23), which appears to offer a crumb of comfort to the apparently disenfranchised Jewish community is, with due respect, a little bit away from what is the current and ongoing reality.

Yes, we do need to move on. Especially, where the Holocaust is concerned. It happened.

But it cannot forever be used as an convenient ploy to explain away what is nothing more than a side issue to buttress wrong ideas by a political elite.

And let’s not forget, that the so-called campaign against the popular anti-Semitism in Europe and elsewhere nowadays, is nothing more than a cynical ploy orchestrated essentially by the Israeli Government to seal off the Zionist state from any negative criticism of its regular and ongoing brutality against the Palestinians.

The Holocaust should not be used as a excuse to tolerate the crimes against those trying to live their lives in Palestine.

Also, contrary to popular belief, Israel is not a weak and defenceless country. It is the strongest state in the Arab region. It possesses weapons of mass destruction. And probably has more military hardware than all the Arab world put together.

Lastly, modern Zionism is mainly an ideology of a secular Jewish Nationalism. It has nothing to do with what many Orthodox Jews think – who remain mostly hostile to Zionism.

Yes, learning from the past can be very instructive. However, as far as Jews and the State of Israel are concerned, sometimes myth and reality can be very confusing.

Andrew Martin

Abbotsbury Road

Weymouth