I am writing with regard to "Who Let The Dogs Out?" by Chloe Hooper (November 2006). This was a highly interesting article bringing to light events surrounding the death of Cameron Doomadgee as well as depressing insights into the Aboriginal population and the hopeless waste of youth suicide amongst this community.

Chloe Hooper penned the comparison that Aboriginal youths posed for pictures next to a grave "something reminiscent of young Palestinians posing for the video camera before blowing themselves up". While many Aboriginal youths may be subject to suicidal tendencies, the use of this comparison is unnecessary, inappropriate and insulting to the many victims of horrific terrorism.

These Indigenous Australian youths are not about to walk into pizza parlours or to board buses with the specific intent of ending as many innocents' lives as possible. These youths do not use elaborate disguises for the express purpose of homicide and the destruction of coexistence on the weak promise of 72 virgins in heaven. There is a world of difference between the self harm of an individual in a state of depression and hopelessness, and the intentional and indiscriminant murder of many via a terrorist act. Chloe Hooper has ignored these fundamental differences.

I question Chloe Hooper's intentions in attempting to draw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into an article solely about a domestic Australian issue. Why does she not draw comparisons with Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Iraq or Sudan elsewhere in the article? The use of this comparison, and the poor judgement in not editing this in a responsible fashion, has not gone unnoticed by a regular reader who enjoys the spectrum of issues and viewpoints covered by The Monthly. The blatant and unnecessary use of this comparison in an attempt to legitimise the extraneous views of Chloe Hooper is quite objectionable and requires further justification.