“ When we elect European Members of Parliament we expect that when they provide us with information it is both without bias and accurate. However Ms Jill Evans MEP appears to have ignored this basic principle when she wrote in the Rhyl Visitor yesterday 27th February regarding the situation in Gaza and Bethlehem. May I give you some actual facts that will show that Ms Evans needs to re-visit the region, as I have done, and speak to ordinary Israelis who will give a different perspective and clearly one closer to the truth.

Ms Evans probably wasn’t told that in the Bethlehem she visited, Christian sites have been desecrated by Palestinian Militants. Rami Ayyad, 29, a prominent member of Gaza Baptist Church and manager of a Christian bookstore owned by the Palestinian Bible Society, was kidnapped on Oct. 6 last year shortly after he had closed the store for the day. His body was found the following day about a mile from the store. The Bible Society store was attacked last spring when a bomb was detonated at the door of the building, damaging the first floor. Hanna Massad, pastor of the Gaza Baptist Church in Gaza reported "In the last few days, the Palestinian Authority Police took our church building as a watching point," Massad wrote in an e-mail;” the church attempted to deny the police request to take the building, but officers broke in”. Massad later discovered that a computer and other equipment, valued at about $4,000, had been taken. He also said he had to stop an evening worship service on June 10 due to shooting nearby. The apartment of a church member was bombed as well, slightly injuring the person.

In April during violence among warring Palestinian factions, a bomb severely damaged the Palestinian Bible Society building in Gaza City. The building, located in the city centre, houses the Teacher's Bookshop - Gaza's only Christian bookstore. The building also includes a library and a community development centre. It is the base for one of the largest relief agencies in the Gaza Strip. On the fifteenth of this month the YMCA building which contained thousands of books used by both Christian and Muslim Arabs was blown up by Palestinian Militants.

Ms Evans in her article calls Bethlehem a “Ghost Town” she fails to understand however that this is so because over 80% of the Christian community have left in the last seven years due to persecution by Palestinian Arabs.

Did anyone explain to Ms Evans whilst she was there that the wall, which is in fact 96% fence and only a wall in areas that are vulnerable to terrorist attack, has prevented hundreds of suicide bombers who try to enter Israeli towns daily? Was she told that even downs syndrome girls have been packed with explosives and ordered to enter Israel to perform acts of terrorism and failed to get through because of the security checks in the fence saving their lives and the lives of others.

I have been in Israel before the security fence was built and experienced the suffering of innocent Israeli families who lost loved ones as a result of suicide bombers. The fence has prevented hundreds of suicide bombers entering Israel since it was erected.

Ms Evans refers to a shortage of books, she of all people must know about the millions of Euros that have been given to the Palestinian Authority. Books which as she must be aware have been written to include hate messages and used in schools in order to teach Arab children to hate the Jews.

Regarding medical help for Palestinians; Israel has always had an open door policy to those Palestinian Arabs with medical needs. However security checks are essential as is the case of a
Palestinian Arab woman who last year made weekly visits from Gaza to Tel Aviv hospital for treatment. Then on one day she was stopped at a check point and it was discovered that she was armed with explosives with the intention of murdering the very people who had treated her. This has not stopped Israeli hospitals treating Palestinians but has emphasised the need to keep security as a high priority.

Ms Evans is surely aware that the UN have declared HAMAS as a terrorist organisation but have said that if HAMAS would lay down its arms the ordinary Palestinian people would receive much more help. That is the cause of poverty in the region and not Israel who have also offered help in exchange for a much-wanted ceasefire and in fact gave land away two years ago at Gush katif with that very promise by Palestinians but as you see that promises was broken.

I want to conclude with my response by asking Ms Evans, if she would like to visit the Israeli town of Sderot, which lies only two miles outside Gaza on undisputed land. Ms Evans was close to that town when she visited Gaza but didn’t visit Sderot . Sderot had a civilian population of 24,000 in 2001 but that has declined to 18,000 due to the firing of over 40,000 Kassam rockets and missiles at its civilian population from Gaza in 7 years. 95% of the children of Sderot suffer post Traumatic stress; men women and children have been indiscriminately killed by HAMAS terrorists who make open statements that they want to destroy every Jew in the region. I have stayed in that town and experienced the daily rocket attacks that have destroyed the fabric of that small innocent Israeli community. If she would like to visit http://www.christiansforzion.com/podcasts/2007/4/15/in-the-midst-of-devastation.html she would hear the story of a mother of three who visited Wales last year with her children and told her harrowing story.

On the very day that you published Ms Evans article a 47yr old father of four was killed by one of 40 Kassam rockets that were aimed at Sderot as he walked across the college car park. Ms Evans has previously described these rockets as primitive but I would describe them as weapons of war because no matter how primitive they are if they kill people, which they do, they are military tools of war.

I would like to challenge Ms Evans to join me on my next visit to Sderot and I would be happy to pay for her flight and accommodation in the town in order to equip her to do what we elected her to do and that is to correctly and without bias report on situations that involve ordinary people who live in extraordinary places such as Israel.