Readers' letters: Where will Palestinians go if they are kicked out of Gaza?

This tragic fiasco has eerie echoes of the Nakba of 1948, when the Palestinians were forcibly removed from their historic homeland, to make way for the birth of the state of Israel. Many Palestinians were killed then, as has happened now in Gaza, and of those remaining, a vast majority will simply refuse to leave.

Like so many of President Trump's throwaway ideas, this one, at best, is lethally half-baked, so much so that he’s now claiming that the move will be temporary. Benjamin Netanyahu may live to regret stating that the totally untrustworthy Donald Trump is the “best friend Israel ever had”. We can only hope so.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Wrong way round

Surely President Trump has got things the wrong way round? Instead of threatening forcible resettlement of Palestinians in neighbouring countries, he could offer to resettle the Israelis.

There are 50 states in the USA. Surely one could be spared. I would suggest Nebraska, which is thinly populated and could easily accommodate the entire population of Israel. Then the Palestinians could return to the land from which they were expelled in 1948 and peace would return to the Middle East.

Robert Cairns, Ceres, Fife

Gaza’s fate

I’m not sure which was the most incredible. President Trump’s announcement on Gaza or the media’s acceptance that it was a genuine policy.

There was one positive. It’s amplified the question of the future for Gaza. Statehood is out of the question. Why? Because they don’t want one. They were offered one in 1936, 1948 and in 2000 when Yasser Arafat walked away from Camp David after being offered a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem and 96 per cent of the West Bank.

In 2005 Israel removed all Jews from Gaza and handed it to the Palestinians. Effectively that was a state. So they voted in Hamas and decided to spend all the billions of aid on a war with Israel. Now Trump has opened the question. There doesn’t appear to be any other plan except retuning Gaza to its former state but there can be no return to Gaza under Hamas control. You would hope Egypt could temporarily assist but they have built a huge wall to keep the Palestinians out.

It will take a generation for any peace and as Golda Meir famously said: “We will only have peace in Palestine when the mothers love their children as much as they hate us.”

Lewis Finnie, Edinburgh

Lovely jubbly

My fellow Glaswegian J Moore’s comparison of the huckster in the White House to Del Boy (Letters, 6 Ferbruary) has stayed with me all day; the image of the alleged leader of the Free World travelling around Washington in a yellow three-wheeler van, telling folk “the world is my lobster”, still has me chortling.

Doug Morrison, Tenterden, Kent

Hammer blow

The news of the issue of the first batch of redundancy notices to members of staff at Grangemouth signals a new low, both for the workers concerned and the rest of Scotland as a nation. A country which produces oil will now have to buy fuel from its neighbour. It is pathetic, undignified and should be causing more political outrage and action than it is.

The damage that this is going to do to Scotland’s balance of payments is hard to overstate. It will shrink Scottish GDP by a considerable amount, further harming our exports whilst increasing our imports. Lower economic activity and therefore lower tax revenue will only result in the notional GERS deteriorating further, thus harming the independence cause.

England will now reap the spoils of refining even more of Scotland’s oil and will, as a result, have a larger and stronger economy. Refining oil is a margin business and the economic output is enormous with huge returns, as we have seen from Grangemouth during this past year. What business turning £100 million in profit gets shut down? Does anyone not believe this is political? Make Scotland poorer and more dependent on England whilst Whitehall funnels wealth to those who dance to its tune.

Grangemouth/s closure is one of the worst things to happen to Scotland in many long years. Scotland is being turned into an economic vassal state where its resources are extracted, removed and then sold back to it at inflated prices. Every time you fill up your car after Grangemouth closes think of all the workers laid off and all the jobs no longer in Scotland but in England that are being supported by Scotland’s oil.

Jim Finlayson, Banchory, Aberdeenshire

Hairy loons

Michty me, min! I was stunned to find that a 400-year-old strand of hair had been found at St Nicholas Kirk here in Aberdeen (Scotsman, 6 February) and that they were able to deduce how much, or how little sun the owner of it had. Of course, we still get very little sun these days either. Also, despite global warming, none of it ever seems to reach us.

In the meantime, at this time of year, we do things like wearing our winter woollies to stay warm and also, we grow our hair long, right down to our waists. Or, we would if we could, but according to your article, hair only grows around a centimetre a year! How much? I don't do much in the way of centimetres. Like most folk, I still use inches. But, surely a centimetre is less than an inch, isn't it?

Are you saying that we’re very hairy people in Aberdeen, because my hair grows a hell of a lot more than one centimetre in one year? It must mean a centimetre a month, or maybe a week, surely? I grew mine to my shoulders when I was young and that was in much less than a year.

Dave Anderson, Aberdeen

Rent controls

At First Minister's questions this week, Greens co-leader Lorna Slater complains about soaring private sector rents across Scotland and demands that John Swinney extend existing rent controls – controls largely initiated by the Greens before they were driven out of government.

In raising this matter, Slater conveniently overlooks that rents are rising much faster in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK principally because of the rent cap for which the Greens were responsible.

This meant that while for a period during and after the pandemic rents were frozen, ongoing high levels of Scottish government regulation combined with steep inflation and soaring property maintenance costs have resulted in large rent increases for new tenancies.

Slater is seemingly motivated by far-left dogma and appears to regard private landlords in Scotland with contempt. However, that under the SNP, new social housing starts in Scotland have hit a 20-year low suggests Slater would be better embracing reality and cooperating with rather than attacking private landlords.

Meanwhile, may I suggest Slater reflects on the direct impact her own actions have had in increasing Scottish rents and ceases meddling in a market she apparently is incapable of understanding.

Martin Redfern, Melrose, Scottish Borders

Nuclear’s safe

As a scientist who regularly used radioactive chemicals produced in nuclear reactors in virology research, lived close enough to Faslane to see nuclear powered submarines passing by when looking out of the kitchen window, and has been inside Sellafield and Dounreay, from personal knowledge I don’t share Elizabeth Scott’s worries about radioactive pollution (Letters,7 February).

I also consider the First Minister to be profoundly mistaken in his opposition to nuclear power (your report, 7 February). Among other things, it will exclude Scotland from getting the full benefits from AI and other revolutionary computer developments, because they are so power-hungry that they will need far more than green energy can provide, even when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining.

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

Emissions mission

John Swinney has made it clear that the Scottish Government “will not give the green light to nuclear power stations in Scotland”.

Now assuming politicians are aware that dunkelflaute weathermeans no wind, hence no electricity generated from such a technology, then Anas Sarwar was slow in failing to point out that John Swinney was accepting that, when the wind does not blow, Scotland will be dependent on the output of English gas turbines to keep the lights on.

In addition, that raises the question of who is responsible for the emissions from the English plant. Is it Westminster under whose jurisdiction the plant is sited or is it Holyrood who are responsible for purchasing the product?

Perhaps Lorna Slater could provide an answer!

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway

Feline believable

As ideas go, the recent talk of banning cats in Scotland had an April Fool's Day feel to it. John Swinney eventually surfaced and denied it out of hand (Scotsman, 4 February). That many believed it in the first place speaks volumes for how the SNP are seen.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

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