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Kenneth Cardwell's article, "Try teaching democracy in an occupied territory", (Opinion, THES , April 12) is a one-sided, political diatribe about the present crisis in the Middle East.

Cardwell's political partisanship is best conveyed by the penultimate line: "The continuing unwise, illegal and unjust settling of conquerors on the defeated people's land."

That may be one view, but it has little to do with Bethlehem University, the alleged subject of his article.

I was repulsed by Cardwell's statement that, when they left, the Israeli forces left behind, inter alia, "12 neatly stacked boxes of matzoh". Did we need to be told this?

Coupled with the cartoon showing an Israeli tank with a Star of David, shooting over and about to crush an olive branch and several books, the overall effect was to sit on the fence rather uneasily between anti-Israeli propaganda and sheer anti-Semitism. I am appalled.

David-Hillel Ruben
Professor of philosophy, Soas
Director, NYU in London