24/11/04

To call Teesside Airport, Durham Tees Valley is ludicrous, as it is just outside of Darlington.

The name will baffle not only foreign travellers, but national ones as well. The airport is nowhere near Durham and its name should be changed to Tees Valley or back to good old Teesside Airport again.

At least that way travellers will find themselves in the correct location instead of being lost in Durham, and in an airport with a local name. - Christopher Wardell, Darlington.

MIDDLE EAST

IF George Bush and Tony Blair are serious about resolving the Arab/Israeli conflict, they need to accept the minimum requirements for a Palestinian State. It would be necessary for the Israelis to withdraw completely from all of the West Bank and Gaza, and to remove every single one of the illegal Jewish settlements.

If this seems uncompromising, it must be remembered that the 1947 partition plan allocated about 50 per cent of Palestine for the creation of the new state of Israel. Ending the occupation now, ie withdrawing to the 1967 borders, would leave Palestinians with just 22 per cent of the land. They cannot be expected to compromise further.

A Palestinian state could not be viable if it were any smaller, or dotted with Jewish settlements and intersected by "settlers only" roads. Nor could it survive unless vital water resources are shared - per head, Israelis now consume over five times more water than Palestinians.

Sadly, successive Israeli governments have refused to contemplate such a solution. Last year, Hamas and Islamic Jihad agreed a ceasefire, indicating that if Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders, they would confine themselves to political, rather than military, campaigning. The Israeli response was to assassinate two Hamas activists. The ceasefire held, so they assassinated an Islamic Jihad leader. This can have had no other purpose than to provoke retaliation and end the ceasefire.

It worked - five days later, 20 innocent Israelis were murdered by a suicide bomber in West Jerusalem.

If the Israelis really wanted to protect themselves against these suicide bombers, they would be building their "security fence" along the 1967 border. Instead, the wall cuts deep into Palestinian territory, isolating Palestinians from their farmland, schools, hospitals, etc and taking in most of the illegal settlements on the Israeli side.

Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, recently stated that the aim of Israeli policy was to freeze the peace process and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. We knew that, didn't we? - Pete Winstanley, Durham.

REGIONAL ASSEMBLY

IT was with some incredulity that I have seen so many letters in HAS primarily concerned with the referendum on a regional assembly in the North-East bringing in the European Union as the main force behind the regionalisation of Britain.

Surely this was a misreading of the purpose of the Committee of the Regions in Brussels, created in 1994 to help the understanding of the needs of various regions in the EU. To discuss applications for regional aid, for example, with local and regional authorities was important. 'Subsidiarity' was the key word - the principle that decisions should be taken by those public authorities standing closest to the citizens involved. Meetings would be held about five times a year.

Here was no plan to tear the UK into strips of regions and take over the country. Too many conspiracy stories must have been read by some writers to HAS who then easily believed them.

Or could it be that some Eurosceptic group such as the New Frontiers Foundation (previously an anti-euro campaign group) was deliberately feeding these untrue stories to the public?

The recently adopted new constitution for the enlarged European Union emphasises the point that the EU is a union of independent nation states. It also gives clear instructions about how to leave the union should that be the will of a member state. - David J Whittaker, Richmond.

FOOTBALL

RACIST abuse is no more worthy of concern than all of the other appalling things that are done and said on football pitches and the terraces.

There is a substantial minority of violent and aggressive people in our society who see football as nothing more than an opportunity to hurt and abuse other people. Rival fans, the visiting team, the match officials, black players are all legitimate targets in the eyes of these dangerous and disturbed people.

Sadly, some footballers have lost all sense of fair play, sportsmanship and respect for their opponents that they, too, are guilty of the most vicious fouls and blatant cheating and are part of the overall problem. Thanks to them, this behaviour has filtered down through all levels of football so that nine and ten year olds now display conduct that was unthinkable 20 years ago. What a future we face.

Meanwhile, spineless commentators and studio 'experts' have, over the years, condoned what happens on the pitch and thrown up every excuse so as not to be too critical of the players who they are probably socialising with on a regular basis or needing to interview.

So, don't expect too much to change in the wonderful world of football. The thugs will continue to hurl abuse and smash faces, racists will grunt like monkeys whilst their heroes are dragging shirts off each other's backs and aiming their tackles at shins just at the point where bones snap more easily. With so much money sloshing around, the people who long for the days when football was played with respect and honesty are considered as outdated and irrelevant sentimentalists. - D Brearley, Middlesbrough.

HUNTING

I SUGGEST Norman Smith (HAS, Nov 22) gets his facts straight.

The public does not favour an all-out ban of foxhunting. Although 38 per cent are in favour, an overwhelming (or you would think) 58 per cent would like foxhunting to continue in some form.

This has proved to be the case in eight consecutive polls taken since 2002.

So it would seem the House of Lords, unlike the House of Commons, does acknowledge the fact that we live in a democracy. - Phil Townsend, student, Durham University.

GREAT NORTH RUN

I NOTE with utter dismay how much the Great North Run fee has gone up this year. I think £28 to £34 is absolutely disgusting.

What are they trying to do, price the average runners out and make it just for the well off?

I have done 15 and I will be doing no more. I think they are trying to take the fun out of it.

I think Nova International should take a good long look at itself. - Brian Alderson, Crook.