IN REPLY to Mr Knapton, York’s Palestine Solidarity stand is outside M&S nearly every Saturday. It was more active than usual last weekend due to Israel’s bombing of Gaza and the terrible casualties.

York citizens and others queued to offer support and to ask what else they can do. One suggestion is to support the arms boycott of Israel (and, yes, of Palestine too – why not make the whole Middle East a nuclear-free zone?) Mr Knapton says we do not know the history of the region. We will be happy to talk to him about this. His history is biblical and may or may not have happened 2,000 years ago, but is not relevant except as myth.

Coming closer to today, we find a history of Zionist colonisation in Palestine, aided and abetted by the UK. Since 1947, Israel has been continually expanding its borders. This continues today, with illegal settlements and sieges, and guns and bombs which far outweigh the Palestinian response.

Israel was unjustly created by the United Nations in 1947, with unfair borders. Those are the borders Israel should return to. If they want a state where ethnicity rules, that is up to them. But Palestine should be freed to develop into a secular democratic state of all its citizens.

This will include Jews, but they would not have a dominant hegemonic role.

John Bibby, Strayland Grove, York.