THE only defence is in offence, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourself.

These are not my words, but those of three times Prime Minister of England, Stanley Baldwin.

We ourselves have many skeletons in the cupboard. English soldiers in the mid 17th-century killed a third of the Irish population, men, women and children.

In the mid-19th century when the famine came to Ireland, the richest, most powerful empire in the world sat back and watched as thousands died or had to emigrate. After all, the less Irish, the less trouble. Some of your letter writers on the Palestinian problem need to read the history books.

Bigoted old men have been sending our young men to kill and die for centuries. The Middle East is a bomb waiting to explode, we shouldn’t interfere, look at the so-called Arab spring, there are some problems that don’t have a solution.

C Crowe, Oakwood Close, Church Fenton.