Sir, – You quote Israel’s minister of public diplomacy (ie propaganda) Yuli Edelstein as mentioning “certain artists and writers in this country who say, ‘We don’t want to have Israeli culture here, we don’t want to have Israeli representatives’,” (Home News, February 29th). Mr Edelstein is deliberately conflating, for propaganda purposes, two separate issues.

Those who call for a cultural boycott of the Israeli state do not seek to boycott Israeli artists, only the sponsorship of those artists by the Israeli state, in which case they are indeed seen as “representatives” of Israel, an apartheid state massively in violation of international law and international humanitarian law. There is no call for a boycott of Israeli culture per se, only Israeli barbarism. Mr Edelstein says boycotting should be “the last resort, when you are dealing with a terrible dictatorship that is oppressing its own people”.

The Israeli state is oppressing another people: the Palestinians under its criminal occupation. It also oppresses “its own people”: just ask those second-class Palestinian citizens of Israel or residents of Jerusalem who have seen their homes demolished for the third or fourth times or who are prevented from reuniting their families by Israel’s racist laws.

Mr Edelstein objects to “the language of boycotts” between “two democracies”: but Israel is a democracy only for its Jewish citizens, and hence an apartheid state. Once Israel becomes a democracy, ie the state of all its citizens, and ends its criminal occupation of the Palestinian territories, there will be no further call for a cultural boycott. – Yours, etc,

Sir, – It is disappointing your article (Home News, February 29th) did not look behind the benign public image of the “Faces of Israel” project.

Hasbara is the Israeli state propaganda mechanism by which the Israeli foreign affairs ministry, in partnership with various other government and non-government, bodies, seeks to counter any criticism of Israel and its actions. “Faces of Israel” is an Hasbara Fellowship initiative, the stated aim of which is, “to train and motivate university students to be passionate dedicated and effective pro Israel advocates”.

The promoter of the Hasbara Fellowship is Aish International, an offshoot of Aish HaTorah, an Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva organization which has links with many of the most aggressive settler groups who are the front line troops in the campaign of relentless colonisation by settlement of Palestine.

I suggest it would have informed readers more comprehensively if The Irish Times had been a little more investigative, and a lot less naïve, in its journalism, when reporting of this latest Israeli charm offensive. – Yours, etc,