Bush and Blair seem to think that terrorism began with '9-11'. Opponents of their belligerent policies recall the years of US aggression against the people of Vietnam, aided by supine Australian and British governments, Labour and Conservative. They recall the years when day in and day out napalm bombs rained down on civilians and entire townships were destroyed. Some remember farther back to Korea and Japan, the American-backed annexation of Formosa, to the most heinous of all terrorist acts, the dropping of atomic bombs on two Japanese cities. And they remember back to post-war decisions by Britain to test atomic and other weapons of mass destruction on Pacific islands and the Australian mainland.

But it is Israel that sticks in the gullets of so-called terrorists.

The world is not threatened by Iraq, or by its egomaniac President. It is threatened by the existence of a nation-state created and maintained by force out of an exiled religious group on territory that had belonged to another people, Falasteen, the Palestinians, for the best part of four millennia. Founded out of a wartime expedient, self-confessedly a sop to Balfour's 'Christian conscience', implemented by American guns and money, Israel is protected by the major nuclear powers of the present. And it alone among the new and emergent powers is able to pursue its own nuclear programme without question or hindrance.

Where, Mr Blair, is Vanunu, the man who had the courage to tell the truth to a British newspaper and was abducted by Mossad with the help of British Intelligence? Why aren't you demanding his release from gaol? Why do you constantly refer to Israel's right to independent existence yet never demand the same right for Palestine? Why are Mossad, CIA and MI6 allowed to work together in Britain while we claim to be independent in our judgement of acts of 'terrorism'.

Israel it seems is able to claim prior rights in world affairs, to attack other lands because it disapproves of their philosophies, postures or military preparations, to ignore the will and the resolutions of the rest of the world community, to proclaim openly that a hundred Palestinian lives are not worth a single Israeli victim? Israel is permitted by American might and British acquiescence to act without regard to the rights or interests of others, with contempt for its victims. It doesn't disguise its conviction - a conviction shared by Christian politicians from Balfour to Blair - that it is now the land of the Chosen People; that there is no longer a legitimate place for the dispossessed people of Palestine.

Until Bush and Blair begin to understand what it is that riles their opponents, until they examine their own cosy belief that all the world's ills are caused by Saddam Hussain and Bin Laden, they will go on pummelling in the dark. As long as they look for Palestinian infraction and turn a blind eye to Israel's contempt for international agreement, there will be no peace in the world. They should revive without delay General Assembly Resolution 181 (11) of 29 November 1947 which divided Palestine and Jerusalem into two roughly equal parts, each to have sovereignty and the recognition of each other's rights. That was a large pill for Palestinians to swallow. But it was the basis of Israel's existence and it is the minimum requirement for peace in the world.

Then, maybe, Al Qa'eda and Saddam Hussain will cease to haunt the Pentagon, Whitehall and the rest of us.

Revised 10/04/04