Thank you: Letters, 4 January

The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Here you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.

Thank you for generosity to Foodbank

Firstly, the Foodbank would like to thank the Bay of Plenty Times for selecting the Foodbank as the recipient of their annual Christmas Appeal as it was due to this support that ensured the outstanding success of the appeal which raised in excess of $40,000 of non-perishable food items and cash.

Secondly, thank you Tauranga and, on behalf of the Tauranga Community Foodbank, I wish to take this opportunity of thanking all the businesses, companies and individuals and, in fact, the entire community for their generosity and support of the appeal.

The Foodbank is expecting a somewhat challenging 2012 but the appeal has certainly made things easier for us.

With the ongoing support of the community we believe that we will be in a strong position to assist the most vulnerable citizens of Tauranga with food parcels long into the future.

Thank you one and all.

Mike Baker, Chairman, Tauranga Community Foodbank Trust

Grinding noise

My wish for this new year is to go to a cafe and have a coffee in quiet surroundings, without the noise of the continual banging of the vessel when it is being emptied that is used to collect the grounds or the hissing of the coffee machine. Quite often this noise makes it impossible for you to hear what is being said at the table and I am not deaf.

Wendy Galloway, Omokoroa

Two sides to story

I wonder how many of these people who are attacking Mary Brooks for her support of Palestine are really aware of the terrible death and destruction inflicted on the Palestinians since Israel became a State in 1948.

Israel did not want to share a state with the Palestinians so they set about ousting them. An example is the massacre of the village Deir Yassen in April 1948 - a pastoral village designated for ethnic cleansing. Zionist forces, including the notorious Stern gang, entered the village spraying the houses with machine-gun bullets. Some of the women were raped and then killed and the death toll included 30 babies. Finally, the village was blown up and the Zionists proudly proclaimed this is what would happen to other Palestinians if they did not take flight.

Safad was the next village to be ethnically cleansed and so it went on. Finally, the Israelis had taken control of 78 per cent of the land, 23 per cent more than the UN had allocated to the Jewish state.

Israel had destroyed more than 400 Palestinian villages and at least 10,000 Palestinians were killed. In defiance of UN Resolution 194, Israel has denied the legal rights of Palestinians to return to their homes.

This assault on the Palestinians and Gaza inhabitants has continued to the present day.

C Thompson, Tauranga