A Palestinian state

sir – Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, says the UK is considering whether formally to recognise a Palestinian state (report, February 1). Meanwhile, Mike Freer, the muchesteemed MP, has resigned because of threats to him and his family after he offered firm – yet not uncritical – support to Israel (report, February 2).

Lord Cameron is surely aware that, since 1948, Jerusalem has made overtures to Arabia to create a

Palestine and live at peace with Israel. In return it has been attacked. Does he really believe that the so-called moderate Palestinians whom he favours as leaders of a future Palestine – namely the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which is led by a man accused of being a holocaust denier – can earnestly sign up to a true peace with Jerusalem?

The PLO and Hamas both seek the destruction of Israel. They differ on the method. While Hamas uses war, the PLO relies on propaganda, and passing for peaceful victims, which they aren’t. A Soudry Jerusalem, Israel sir – It is deeply troubling that MPs like Mike Freer are being intimidated out of office by threats against them from pro-Palestinian radicals. Extra protection should indeed be considered, but this does not tackle the heart of the problem.

This tragic situation is surely a consequence of the pathetic response of police officers and their appeasement of Islamist and far-Left protesters who have taken to the streets of Britain’s cities every Saturday since Hamas’s genocidal pogrom.

These extremists and the useful idiots who march with them have felt empowered to break the law – calling for jihad, glorying in anti-Semitic chants and attacking those who stand up to them while police turn a blind eye. Appeasement never works. It is only by demonstrating forcefully that this is not how we conduct ourselves in Britain that such threats will diminish. Jeremy Crick Wolstanton, Staffordshire sir – Allison Pearson’s article on mass migration (Comment, February 2) reminded me of a warning about the concept of Islamophobia given by the late Christopher Hitchens: “This is very urgent business, ladies and gentlemen, I beseech you: resist it while you still can and before the right to complain is taken away from you, which is all but upon us ... And remember, the barbarians never take a city until someone holds the gates open to them, and it’s your own preachers and multicultural authorities who will do it for you.” Graeme Brierley

Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire