Did our politicians not see Israeli forces attacking Shireen Abu Akleh’s funeral?

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

What if Muslims or Christians attacked the funeral procession of a slain Israeli journalist? (AFP/Getty)

The scenes of Israeli forces attacking the coffin of Shireen Abu Akleh were reprehensible, horrible and beyond human comprehension. Didn’t Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Theresa May, Priti Patel, Keir Starmer, Dominic Raab et al see this?

David Ben Gurion once said: “The old will die and the young will forget.” Looking at protests against the demolition of homes and properties, expulsion of Palestinians from their lands and homes, murderous assaults on cities, towns and villages and looting of Arab properties; resistance activities are being carried out by young teenagers as young as 10 and 15 years old.

Now let us imagine this scenario: what if Muslims or Christians attacked the funeral procession of a slain Israeli journalist? How would the US, France, Germany and the UK have reacted? We are appalled and disturbed by these scenes, we wait for an impartial investigation of this incident – this is not enough.

It’s time to dismantle the Israeli apartheid state.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London

Nuclear power

A good article on Three Mile Island by James Moore. He is correct that it is people who are the problem.

Chernobyl happened because the plant engineers decided to try something contrary to instructions in order to see what happened.

Like cats, people are curious creatures who like to try things to see what happens. It’s how we make progress but as the saying goes, “curiosity killed the cat”.

Sean O’Hara

East Sussex

Making a mockery of Britain

Rob Merrick’s article “Rebels MPs fear Johnson….” reinforces the feelings of many voters that our government is populated by wishy-washy, gutless MPs who are too scared to do the right thing and rid the party of the curse that is Boris Johnson.

After showing how incompetent he was as mayor of London and how hopeless he is at running the country, why doesn’t his party, to save whatever reputation they have left, end his tenure as PM?

His incompetence to run the country is well documented: riding roughshod over the rule of law, Partygate, lying to parliament, Covid-19 and the Brexit debacle, supporting reprobate MPs and advisors – the list is endless.

He has made a mockery of Britain and its long, proud history of governance. Indeed, many countries use British laws and governance as a template for their own. How long can we hold to account those companies, authorities and organisations found to have broken the laws of the land when the government simply ignores inconvenient laws and rules in order to achieve its own aims?

The Conservative Party must put its house in order and that, unfortunately, can only come from within. Until the next election we could be faced with more of the same from this government unless Tory MPs see sense and replace Mr Johnson and some of his cohorts with competent, caring and able politicians.

Keith Poole

Basingstoke

Lefty lawyers

Just what is a lefty lawyer? Do they do a different degree at a lefty university from other,  presumably righty lawyers? And after a successful career applying the laws of the country, they can then move on to become lefty judges.

As I understand it, lawyers and judges work to uphold laws as made by parliament. There are no lefty laws, only laws. They act to uncover instances of law breaking, something our dear leader has done and openly boasted about.

We haven’t quite got to the point of other countries ruled by extremists, where any criticism of the government is a crime, but we are heading that way.

G Forward

Stirling

Food bank users

Lee Anderson’s comments about food bank users not being able to cook or budget properly seem to have inspired the prime minister.

The sacking of 90,000 civil servants should ensure that soon there will be plenty of food bank users who can cook and probably know quite a lot about finance as well!

Robert Gould

Edinburgh

Greed built in

I heartily agree with Sasha Simic’s remark about the “obscene profits” of supermarkets in Saturday’s letters.

But isn’t any large profit an obscenity? If you’re running a business, you need to make enough money to cover your costs, pay your employees and yourself a fair salary, and have a bit more put by for a rainy day.

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If you end up with huge profits in excess, then you’re overcharging your customers. If you’re taking a seven figure salary you’re paying yourself too much. No one is worth that.

Communism didn’t work as a political system because, as a high ideal, it was susceptible to corruption. Capitalism had greed built in, and was able to ally itself with the virtues of democracy and freedom, so it staggered on for much longer.

But now, in the 21st century, it has become clear that the inevitable consequence of capitalism was the extreme imbalance of wealth. And that imbalance is at the heart of the crises in healthcare, energy, food, housing, climate, etc.

Governments are afraid to take money from the rich because they fear the short- and medium-term damage to their national economies, to which we are all in thrall.

What is necessary is a change in attitude towards personal wealth similar to that which stopped most people wearing animal furs a few decades ago. The selfish rich need to learn to expect the sort of social opprobrium meted out to fur-wearers. And they might discover that most of life’s greatest pleasures are the simple, inexpensive ones.

But I’m not holding my breath.

Susan Alexander

South Gloucestershire