ON April 9, 1948 there was a dawn raid on a small village on the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Some of the villagers tried to fight back, killing four of the raiders, but they had only old, inferior rifles. They were unprepared and disorganised.

Irregular commandos of the would-be state of Israel went from house to house, lined up with residents outside, then shot and hacked to death 250 men, women and children.

This gang, under the command of a man who later became Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, dumped the surviving orphans beside the city wall of Jerusalem. Mission accomplished.

In the following weeks news of this atrocity spread. Its horror suited the Zionists, as villagers in other parts of Palestine panicked and fled. The world has become weary of the "refugee problem". But this is where the injustice started.

The village's name is Deir Yassin. If you go there now you won't find a village: the new Israel wiped it out, like so many of the other villages the Palestinians left behind.

But you can look across to Yad Vashem, the internationally-known memorial of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

There had been bigger atrocities before Deir Yassin, and there have been bigger atrocities since. But there is no atonement for Deir Yassin, or for its consequences.

Deir Yassin taught some the lesson that terrorism pays. It is high time the international community - and that doesn't just mean the USA - made sure that Israel faces up to this injustice, and reversed it.

Nicholas Hall,

Windmill Way,

Haxby,

York.

...ANDREW Collingwood highlights what he feels to be the hypocrisy of the West when dealing with the subject of Israel's nuclear deterrence (Letters, April 2).

It is only fair that we try and understand a little of Israel's predicament

As long as Israel feels her security to be under threat, she will obviously be unwilling to do anything which weakens her defence.

If Israel does indeed have a nuclear deterrent (Israel follows a policy of deliberate ambiguity on this matter) we should perhaps ask ourselves why she has felt it necessary to develop these hateful weapons. Israel feels extremely vulnerable in the Middle East - a tiny nation of some five million surrounded by much larger neighbours hostile to her very existence.

Arab neighbours have attacked Israel in 1948, 1967 and 1973. Syria, Iran and, until recently, Iraq have all threatened to use non-conventional missiles against Israel.

Terrorists continue to try and undermine her stability and will to resist.

In this environment, Israel feels she must maintain the ultimate deterrent to try and forestall even more aggressive acts by her enemies.

David Lyon,

Kingfisher Close,

Huntington, York.

...WAR was declared on Iraq and Saddam Hussein who, brutal dictator though he was, did not, in 2003, possess any weapons of mass destruction nor was he at that time occupying or threatening any other country.

Ariel Sharon's government, on the other hand, had a nuclear arsenal, were occupying Palestine and part of Syria (Golan Heights), and intermittently attacking Lebanon. Which was/is the real threat to the Middle East?

Jean Churm,

Gardet Terrace,

York.

Updated: 11:17 Tuesday, April 06, 2004