Letter of the week: How can we make European leaders speak up on Gaza?

I have thought that the Israeli activity in Gaza has been the very definition of genocide for over a year. What more would they have to do to earn that description? 

The lack of action by others has been politics overcoming humanity, fuelled by the idea that anti-Israel views are antisemitic. They are not.
Chris Howard

I don’t agree with Alastair. While Hamas still holds hostages and is using the people of Gaza as human shields for its continuing attacks on Israel, this conflict, which isn’t a war but a sustained terrorist attack, will continue. 

We may wish that a two-state solution had been agreed years ago and that the two sides were now living in peace, but that’s a liberal dream. 

One side is a democracy that has foolishly gone down a wrong path, the other side is a murderous tyrannical “death to all Jews” regime, struggling to survive.
Matthew Bowles

Can someone like Alastair Campbell, whose opinions I respect, please explain why we have to have that apology for humanity Trump as a visitor to our country? 

We would not invite other rulers who are so far removed from our basic principles to stay with our king. Why him?
A regular reader and listener, Cambridgeshire

Paul Mason assumes that any criticism of the Israeli government is because they are Jews and critics are just “antisemitic” (“Palestine Action is bad for Palestinians”, TNW #443). Playing that card is the last resort of somebody who can find no other defence for the obscenities that are being committed by that government. 

The scale of their retaliation is out of all comparison to the October 7 obscenity. While punishment for self-defence may be acceptable, that boundary has been overstepped to an unacceptable level.
Brian Hickey

I think Paul Mason’s article regarding Palestine Action missed an important issue: the slippery slope that proscribing it as a terrorist group will invariably lead. The actions of Just Stop Oil, which were much more draconian, never led to this.
L Rolfs
Brackenhurst

There is quite some overlap between the readership of TNW and that of my long-running Brexit & Beyond blog. I have had several messages from people wrongly assuming the letter from Christopher Grey (TNW #444), responding to Paul Mason on Palestine Action, was written by me. 

Without expressing any view on its contents, but because of the sensitivity of its subject, I would be grateful if you would allow me to clarify that this was not me.
Christopher Grey 

Suggested Reading

Letter of the Week: Silencing protest won’t help Palestinians

Reader Letters

Sonia Sodha’s “Nobbling the jury” (TNW #444).  argues for perfection at the expense of the good as if infinite resources were available.

The whole judicial system is broken and suffering from long-term decline in investment. Sir Brian Leveson admits that his proposed changes are not sufficient to prevent “total system collapse in the near future” and says “I don’t rejoice in these recommendations” – which suggests that he, like Sonia, might prefer no reduction in the use of juries.

While I agree with many of her points about the pros and cons of juries, I think it very likely that a more reliably just and efficient system is available. As seen in fictional representations, the French system looks good to me.
John Treble

Re: (“Meet Britain’s first eco populist” TNW #444). Most political parties in this country want to perpetuate the capitalist system regardless of any long-term cost to society or the planet. 

The raison d’être of the Greens is the perpetuation of society and the planet regardless of the fact that that may require long-term costs to the capitalist system. That, for me, is the main appeal of the Greens.
David Norton
Lincs

Articles like Katherine Cooper’s “Anthony Bourdain’s raw meat, well done” (TNW #444) are what makes a newspaper, thank you. I wasn’t aware of Bourdain so your excellent article conveys the man on a plate, so to speak.

We need more rage, greater passion in what we do. So much of corporate life and politics these days is about toeing the line rather than blazing a path.

I know which way I prefer –  rage!
Les Rogerson 

Gisela Greenaway has “always understood that Greek names ending in -ou are the feminine version of family names ending in …os”. (“Letters” TNW #444). 

Sadly, she has misunderstood. In fact, such names are the genitive, that is possessive, forms of family names ending in -os. 
Peter Trudgill
Norwich

I’ve been using Ozempic for six months, (“Ozempic, the weight of expectation” TNW #444) and my weight has dropped from roughly 12.5st to 9.5st.

I can’t say it has been easy – I resent the implications that there is no suffering aside from nausea. I still feel hungry a lot of the time. But that irritating noise in my head to constantly think about food is more or less silenced. I’m very concerned about withdrawing from the drug.
Catherine Garrett

I’ve been on Mounjaro for six weeks and finding more benefits than just weight loss. Mentally it’s been liberating not to be constantly distracted by food noise. 

Yes, there are side effects. But I feel incredibly excited after a lifetime of obesity that has led to a heart attack and other injuries and chronic conditions, to finally do something that works.
Ross Brown

In her “fireside chat” with Elon Musk, quoted by John Kampfner (“My struggle with Mein Kampf”, TNW #443), Alice Weidel, Germany’s AfD leader, claimed that Hitler was a “communist, socialist guy”, with Musk adding that the Nazis “nationalised industries like crazy”. 

The Nazis did no such thing. A section of them, notably the SA stormtroopers, wished for such a policy, but Hitler slapped them down. 

Their leading member Gregor Strasser is recorded as saying that “the capitalists had got where they were by reason of hard work, which was evidence of their racial superiority”. The SA was crushed, and many of its leaders executed on and after the “night of the long knives” in June, 1934.
Jeff Lewis 

BELOW THE LINE

I loved Simon Barnes’ “The taming of my Shakespeare library” (TNW #444) for two reasons. First, it had real resonance for me, because when my dad died, his collection of classical music CDs passed to me. I always liked the scale and majesty of this music, but my dad was a massive fan, and at some point it’s my intention to listen to all 13 or so hours of the Ring Cycle, following the full orchestral scores, which also found their way to me. The CD box sets are all, as Simon Barnes put it, “stood to attention on the shelf” – waiting.

Second, I was never an academic kid and so Shakespeare never appeared on my syllabus at school in the late 1970s. As an adult I’ve seen various Shakespeare plays and have always really enjoyed them. I’ve never read them though, so this article has prompted me to go and find my dad’s copy of the complete works.
Richard Debonnaire 

Thanks for Simon Barnes’ piece – inspirational! It’s a long time since I’ve read Shakespeare and I will follow his lead. To read them chronologically is a great idea.
Jane Moulder

Re: Great Lives (TNE #444). Lee Miller fell for Roland, not Ronald, Penrose.
Les Rogerson