RECENT correspondents Elizabeth Tebbs and Julie Higson are like the nursery rhyme girl who was "very very good" or "horrid". If they did their homework they would not be in the coconut shy of the ridiculous.

Chapter Seven of the UN Charter recognises the use of force, even as we have jails and police.

Genocide is a word for millions of deaths. The June 1967 census revealed 960,000 Arabs in Gaza, Hebron, Nablus and East Jerusalem. Now there are at least three million. The only Arab "shrinkage" in the area is Christian emigration, caught between Islam and Arab ethnicity.

Complainers about "oil wars" and financial markets would be the first to scream if deprived of central heating, cars, washing machines and microwaves. If you do not like the USA and the oil economy then campaign for the Euro and alternative energy.

The "peace lobby" cannot have their cake and eat it. The 1990-91 Gulf War was legitimate in expelling the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Then sanctions were tried but only killed more -- slowly -- when Iraq refused to sign a peace treaty, even as the Arabs refused to sign a peace treaty with Israel before 1967.

Finally, Afghanistan was about revenge for the attack on New York. Why are 3,000 unarmed dead in New York not worthy of revenge, but 3,000 rioters in Palestine outrage?

Perhaps Elizabeth Tebbs could explain her ill-tempered remark about the collapse of Yugoslavia being "about oil". As I remember, the intervention was about protecting Moslems and went awry due to having insufficient forces at the start. Where is the oil in Yugoslavia?

FRANK ADAM