It's only business as usual in Bolehland when the messenger (writer) is riddled with shots while at the same time the unpalatable message (article content) goes unchallenged. 'Black September: Path of violence' is a case in point where personal animosity against the bringer of bad news (columnist) comes close to obscuring the actual points her critics were attempting to argue.

First, there was the name-calling by Tahir Ali saying I'm supposedly a whitewashing Zionist sympathiser who is "incapable of ethical reporting" presumably because of my failure to "champion the cause" of the Palestinians.

Another irate letter-writer Abdul Rahman Abdul Talib contends I employ "the same tactic" as the Israeli government. Indeed he fires so many salvos - "outrageous claim", "very one-sided", "jumping on the bandwagon", "distorted and unbalanced view", "(un)original analysis", "clichd viewpoint", "illegal and immoral standpoints", "half-baked and sloppy attempt", "lame and hackneyed propaganda" - I feel exhausted just trying to imagine the amount of energy he must have expended.

If even a quarter of what Abdul Rahman says were true, he can be certain I will soon have to "close shop" as a writer... no more business for me. However, I've faith that the article he criticised would stand up to any impartial scrutiny as surely he has not indicated any single factual inaccuracy in my account of the Palestinian acts of terror, assassinations, bombings, massacres and other atrocities.

Tahir's letter alleging that I perhaps considered Palestinians to be "below the rank of dogs and cats" does not merit my response. However, I am compelled to reply to Abdul Rahman's accusations in that he has cast aspersions on my sources of reference, which he authoritatively characterised as being mostly "pro-Israeli writers" on Sabra and Shatila, or otherwise in general those with a neo-con and Zionist slant.

Let me see I cited 'From Beirut to Jerusalem' by Thomas Friedman. Well, never mind that it won a National Book Award for non-fiction. Or that Friedman - as the New York Times foreign correspondent in Beirut in 1982 - was the man on-the-spot. Or that he won a Pulitzer Prize for his investigative reporting, and a blow-by-blow explanation spread over four NYT pages of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. After all, Abdul Rahman would insist I can "never get a balanced view of the incident if (I) stick only to pro-Israeli views while omitting other more credible accounts of the incident". Nonetheless, I won't recommend 'From Beirut to Jerusalem' to him as I'm not sure if he can find this informative book stocked locally (but you can try Singapore). The copy I own had sadly to be bought in San Francisco.

I also remember quoting the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the Lebanese 'National Pact', or the country's version of a social contract for sectarian power sharing. I wrote that the Lebanese civil war was fought largely along religious lines, with the Palestinians casting their lot with the Muslim factions. Now what is Abdul Rahman's beef with Britannica, I wonder? Err, yes, just maybe the encyclopaedia does possess a neo-con outlook, understandably, for it is such a venerable institution.

Next, I cited the BBC's special report on how the PLO destabilised Jordan and threatened King Hussein. I'm perplexed as to Abdul Rahman's objection here. No fair play please, they're British? After that, I quoted Edward Said as commenting on PLO chairman Yasser Arafat's "catastrophic misjudgments and failures" and how the "folly of Palestinian involvement in Lebanese affairs was to lead to the disasters of 1982", or Sabra and Shatila. And who doubts that the late Professor Said figured among the most eloquent advocates of Palestinian self-determination? Yet Abdul Rahman would have it that I "stick to reading only pro-Israeli writers", or material with a neo-con and Zionist slant.

Then there was the bit I attributed to the 'International Religious Freedom Report 2005' by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the US Department of State. These annual reports could well be the definitive contemporary survey on the freedom, or lack thereof, to worship in Lebanon. But then again, originating from America, it would have contained a hidden agenda against the Palestinians to further the international Zionist conspiracy, correct?

Meanwhile, another book I used for my background reading was by a military historian detailing mainly the conduct of the Middle East wars involving Israel. If you were of Abdul Rahman's ilk, you'd presume an Israeli author - even if he's more interested in recording troop movements, who launched which missile from where, and the number of bullets fired - would be inherently prejudiced in favour of Jews. But I jest. 'A History of Israel' is a comprehensive book on its subject I found at a global-chain bookstore here in Kuala Lumpur. I bought the only copy left available although it had unfortunately been "vandalised". Someone from the anti-Israel camp had resorted to attacking books, it would seem.

At this juncture, please allow me to tell malaysiakini readers that my research was not "sloppy"; it was painstaking and time-consuming. I would like to believe I presented the story as scrupulously as possible by considering both sides of the divide. For example, on the number of casualties sustained in Sabra and Shatila, I had written: "The Red Cross counted 328 bodies in the aftermath. Its personnel put the death toll unofficially at between 800 and 1,000. The Israeli estimate was 700-800, and the Palestinian Red Crescent 2,000. Arafat, quick to exploit the tragedy, inflated the figure to 5,000 dead." Because the tally was disputed, I sourced a range of estimates. I daresay the Malaysian mass media will invariably adopt the higher end numbers.

And no, my references were not from mostly from pro-Israeli writers. I had reported as plain fact the incidents universally agreed upon, for example - A Palestinian gunman assassinated Jordan's King Abdullah I in 1951 - without providing any attribution. But rest assured, I did cross reference each account and read multiple essays and books for an understanding of each episode. What I did not do, however, was to exhaustively note all my references in a bibliography (I write articles, not theses). However, I had included citations in my endnotes whenever I borrowed direct quotations, or specific or unique viewpoints.

The verbatim quote "Murderers, they believe only in fire and destruction" I obtained from Haaretz but Abdul Rahman is making a mistake if he assumes that because the newspaper is published in Israel, it is blindly supportive of the establishment. Thankfully, they have a freer press and a more robust democracy there. Don't believe me, read any substantive op-ed (opinion editorial) piece by Haaretz writer Amira Hass and see how pointedly pro-Palestinian she is. And check also how often Hass' work is reproduced in the Electronic Intifada, the Palestinian news resource.

However, Abdul Rahman is correct about one particular omission I observed. I chose not to mention the Kahan Commission's opinion that Ariel Sharon bore "personal responsibility" for Sabra and Shatila. Not that I was unaware of that particular factoid. But after weighing the matter in the balance, I opted not to repeat it in my article. The reason is this: Sharon had sued Time magazine for its 1983 cover story that said a secret appendix to the Kahan report stated the then Israeli Defence Minister encouraged the massacre. While Sharon did not win the US$50 million damages asked, the jury found the Time coverage to be negligent. The magazine later admitted to its error and apologised.

Abdul Rahman also castigates me for only talking about "events occurring after 1967 thus conveniently omitting the series of events and incidents that stretch all the way back when Palestine was a British Mandate" and "the chain of events that has led to the present situation (Hamas' victory), as well as not "addressing the issue of the legality of Israel as a state".

Mea culpa. I had not reckoned that a column permitted me book-length space. I admittedly limited my focus to the Black September 1970s-80s period of Palestinian history. But if "stretching all the way back, and leading to the present situation" is what readers want, I will try in future to satisfy this popular demand.

As to the legality of Israel, I belong to that bigger half of the world which acknowledges Israel as a legitimate part of the global community unpopular though this stance is in Malaysia.

Lastly, if my critics would care for a second reading, they would find that I never said Hamas was not the democratic choice of the Palestinian people. I merely implied I'm not surprised that it is.

Abdul Rahman's suggestion - and in this I'm in accord with him - that "many enough ordinary and decent Palestinians do not consider Hamas to be a terrorist organisation" sends a chill down my spine. Gandhi led the resistance against the British in India and never advocated violence. Hamas' radical wing, on the other hand, has no qualms about taking the fight to civilians in Tel Aviv, or the heart of Israel (not limiting itself to Gaza or the West Bank). In fact, it targets the easiest and most vulnerable segments, women and children, for murder. Do you see Hamas ever throwing up a resistance leader who can evolve into a statesman with the stature of Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu? Somehow, I don't think so.

Abdul Rahman and I share one other common ground in that some quarters question Israel's right to exist, or like Hamas, vows that country's destruction. In my column, I did not embark on tracing the "first cause" or how Palestinians became refugees after the formation of Israel, because that is a self-evident line of narration. If it were not so, the Palestinian conflict would be a non-issue. Therefore I hadn't thought I was required to spell out such basic premises assuming that I was writing for an erudite readership. But alas, as with everything else, there are obviously some exceptions.