I am apalled at the gratuitous attack by Ivor Caplin MP on students from Sussex University who chose to express their solidarity with the Palestinians under attack in the Occupied Territories (April 4).

Instead of directing his fire at the actions of the Israeli Army and Prime Minister Sharon, whose political and military career has consisted of successive massacres of Palestinians, he chooses to attack those who act according to their consciences, rather than tailoring their views according to the latest focus group.

Maybe these students could be described as foolish but most holders of the Victoria Cross could also have been so described.

I was brought up in an Orthodox Jewish family in the shadow of the Holocaust.

It is precisely because Jewish people have experienced racism and genocide that they should be the first people to protest against what is being done in their names to the Palestinians.

Far from supporters of the Palestinians being anti-Semitic, it is those who are ethnically cleansing Palestine of its Arabs who are imitating the ideas of Hitler.

There is only one solution to the Palestinian question and that is a state which is both secular and democratic and where your privileges and status are not dependent on your religion.

-Tony Greenstein, Brighton Unemployed Centre, Hollingdean, Brighton