I read with interest the letter which argued that we Muslim countries should engage Israel, and I beg to differ. We should actually team up with the Americans, Europeans and Jews around the world who are against Israel and Zionism.

They are the ones who can pressure their pro-Israel governments to break with Israel gradually.

We should listen to the late Edward W Said, the great Palestinian champion, who said we should fight Israel and the West with non-violence. This was what he did in his 67 years.

I can list a few groups we can team up with if we want to kick Israel in the butt.

Australia's Green Left, the Green Party USA, Socialist Alliance UK, New Statesman UK, John Pilger (Australia), Noam Chomsky (US), David Barsamian (US), Howard Zinn (US), Robert Fisk (UK).

Israel should not be recognised as a country and neither should it be targeted by terrorism. Terrorism keeps Israel alive, that is, terrorism by Tel Aviv and against it.

Why Israel should not exist, is the same as why apartheid South Africa should not exist. Both are based on theft of native land by immigrants. Israel was founded by the British and American colonial powers using Jews of Europe and USSR, not native to Palestine.

We cannot be anti-Israel in isolation. It has to be in conjunction with opposition to Western imperialism and colonialism.

Israel would never have been born without the backing of Western imperialism and colonialism.

This is not to suggest we reject the progress the West brought us. We just reject all those things which the West gave us that we do not need, things that harm us more than do good for us - soft drinks, alcohol, tobacco, lavish lifestyles, animal coat dresses, nuclear power and designer fingernail art.

And things which are "all right" but downright stupid - mini skirts, men's jewellery, cross-dressing casually, bull-fighting and forming "fight clubs" (as in the movie).

Many people in the West, especially humane socialists, reject Western things and love the middle-path ways of Asians, including progressive (not regressive) Muslims.

Many love Prophet Muhammad, and even liken him to the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. There is a famous church in the West called the Unitarians who believe in the oneness of God (as in Islam and Judaism) and not the Trinity as in mainstream churches.

The late Irish statesman Erskine Childers even went as far as saying that the West "embraced" the teachings, not the whole religion, of Islam, to become a successful nation on Earth. Thus, the West contains Islamic elements, which nourish and sustain us.

We take the Islamic and reject the un-Islamic from the West, and we will live and thrive. I see no other way for the Muslim and the Third World to fight the West and Zionism, but by teaming up with progressive and sympathetic elements in the West, who are not insignificant.

Ralph Nader, the great Arab-American human rights and consumer activist, was twice nominated by the Green Party as US presidential candidate.