In the report of his experience at being refused entry to Israel/Palestine, Dr Peter Prinsley MP reflects on how far Israel has departed from the inclusive, pluralistic, open and democratic principles on which it was founded in 1948 (I’m a British MP, a doctor and Jewish. This is what happened when I tried to enter Israel, 20 September). But were those principles “inclusive, pluralistic, open and democratic” for the Palestinians? The Lebanese author Elias Khoury’s novel Gate of the Sun weaves a web of the stories of Palestinian peasants from northern Israel driven from their houses, villages and land in 1948 and prevented from returning. For however inclusive and open the Zionist project which became Israel may have been, it gave the Palestinians no place. Seventy-seven years on, we are still living with that fact, and until it is recognised and addressed peace will not come.
Dr Hilary Kilpatrick
Lausanne, Switzerland
• I read Peter Prinsley’s account of being denied entry to Israel on his recent visit, and his description of the apartheid state’s descent into a form of crass, unthinking authoritarianism reminded me of something much closer to home. Prinsley doesn’t make the link, but I was put firmly in mind of the Starmer government’s proscription of Palestine Action. A backbencher such as Prinsley may not want to acknowledge it, but his own government is deploying the very same repressive tactics in Britain. Will Prinsley join in condemning that?
Owen Holland
London
