Ancient wisdom |that rings true today

Universal New Year's food for thought for hungry minds to digest.

CHARLES FREDERICKSON

BANGKOK

Israel too, must be reined in

The Israeli defence minister says that the bombing of Gaza is necessary to teach the Palestinians how to behave. However, who will teach the Israelis how to behave in order to stop them stealing even more land from the Palestinians, or how to behave now that they keep Palestinians in what are large, ghetto-like prisons?

Also if the Likud get into power in the coming election, who will make the Israelis behave if they institute a policy to remove the Palestinians altogether from the West Bank?

Just who will stop the Israelis and make them behave? Certainly not the cowardly Western media nor the biased US and UK governments or the rest of the so-called international community.

G W FARROW

BANGKOK

No minority should hold the government hostage

Just as the yellow shirts sought to unilaterally topple a government they disagreed with, so the red shirts are aiming for the same thing. DAAD core leader Nattawut Saikua said that the DAAD objects to the manner in which Abhisit Vejjajiva was elected PM. I don't like the non-transparent manner, either, but no minority has the right to oust a government.

If the DAAD truly objects to the back-room manoeuvrings, it should propose a better method, pledge the parties backing it to follow that method, and move a law to that effect in Parliament. As things are, the DAAD, like the PAD, prefers the way the game is played now - provided the outcome is favourable to itself.

BURIN KANTABUTRA

BANGKOK