I am sorry you were hurt by my signing the ESF petition. I realise how deeply the developments in Israel and the tragic nature of what is happening must be affecting you. I am obviously much less personally affected than you so to respond by explaining politically why I signed may well seem very cold and unfeeling to you but unfortunately other than ignoring your message it is the only way I can respond.

  In the early history of the European community the historical record of certain E.C. countries with respect to the holocaust meant that it was correct for it to give special treatment to Israel as the fledgling state of the Jewish people. However that fledgling state has become a regional power in its own right and moreover one that has become a colonialist state. Since the 67 war it has had a colonialist relation with the Palestinian people. It has been a more complex colonialist relation than the typical imperialist ones of the European powers because of the presence of hostile Arab state neighbours. But over the last 20 years it has been clear that Israel - with US backing - has militarily dominated the region and that it was safe for it to begin a decolonialisation process. This was only sensible for it for if European history teaches us anything, it is that bitter relations between neighbouring peoples - and the relation between Israel and palestine is one both of colonialism and of neighbours- if left to fester, become more and more bitter and entrenched. If you go to Belfast the massive wall paintings on the sides of houses often - in Protestant areas - say something abou 'King Billy' - William of Orange who defeated the Catholics in 1685 (I think). And the Serbs went on about the Battle of Kosovo in 1300. And violence passes from one generation - 1 million Serbs died in World War 2 - and in part they blamed their fellow Yugoslavs. This in part explains but does not justify their behaviour in the 1990s - and in my view the American/European intervention was right.

   Ok - you will say - you know all this, why is it relevant. It is relevant in two ways. First European institutions should not be giving special positive treatment to colonialist states, especially when they take so little account of european goodwill investment as has occured in the Palestinian authority.
   And what is being proposed is withdrawal of preferential treatment for one non-European state not a boycott. It is a well accepted principle that the human rights record of states is considered when they are applying for admission to the EC. So Turkey is not currently allowed to be an active candidate. Second, Israel is going down a dreadfully dangerous path for itself and for the world. It is extremely difficult to decolonialise when two peoples are tightly interwined. The british government tried repression from 1971 to 1972 in Northern Ireland. Since 1974 it has been trying to obtain a peaceful solution, which since 1980 has involved a series of secret negotiations with the Provisional IRA - which did not even exist until 1970(!). All but the last collapsed and bombing campaigns recurred. Bitterness and distrust were so intense - and animosities between the two peoples so intense. When I was interviewing a Catholic torture victim in 1974 in nortehrn Ireland a Protestant BBC cameraman from Belfast who was filming it described 'them' , including the man, as being 'animals', so legitimising the torture. He did not specify who the 'them' precisely consisted of - IRA, IRA-sympathisers like the man or Catholics.
   Rabin began the very difficult process in 1993 but then he was murdered.
   Once the Palestinian authority was in part armed not to continue with the Oslo process was grossly unwise. Obviously the Intifada would recur in a more dangerous form which it did and obviously there would be many more doubts on the Palestinian side about negotiation, which there were. Barak and Clifton made efforts which I agree were appropriate as initial negotiations but they failed just as John Major had failed in Northern Ireland. Patience was required - what happened is that someone who was already viewed as a war criminal by the Palestinians because of Beirut used the only language he knew - the gun. I understand that Sharon has massive support in Israel, so did Protestant leaders who broke the power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland in 1974 - they were wrong and very dangerously so - there were thousands more deaths in Northern Ireland after that time.
   If the Americans are not going to tell the Israelis that they have chosen a stupid and dangerous road for them and given the current relations with the Arab world for us too the Europeans need to do so.
   You could agree with a lot of this and still object because Israeli scientists represent a major progressive force in Israel. You know the details of the activities of the Israeli scientific community much better than me. Let me ask you some questions. When Britain was violating human rights in northern Ireland a group of British scientists of whom I was one were drawing public attention to certain of the violations such as the psychological torture methods being used and the dangerous riot control agents being introduced such as plastic bullets.This was not an issue taken up by mainstream science organisations who generally ignored the human rights violations in Ulster. Are mainstream science organisations in Israel sponsoring fact-finding commissions over Jenin? Are they publishing detailed analyses of what has been happening over the last 18 months in the occupied territories? Are they making clear the long-term dangers of colonialist policies? If the answer to these questions is Yes then I was wrong to sign.

Tim Shallice is a Professor of Neuropsychology at the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Trieste and Director of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College, London