Letter: Who supplied the blinkers?

I note that during a recent parliamentary debate our MP Miriam Cates recently referred to her visit to Palestine

I don't know which Palestine that was, but certainly not the one I have visited twice on my tour of the West Bank on sponsored bike rides for Medical aid for Palestinians.

I can only assume that as a visitor she flew into an airport governed by Israelis who choose at a whim who can enter Palestine.

I hope, unlike the darker skinned members of our group she wasn't detained for five hours for no reason other than tactical vindictiveness.

Incredulously, her main contribution to the parliamentary debate displayed her surprise that Palestinians do not try to "get on with their neighbours."

These are not neighbours who happen to move in next door.

They are bullies who have stolen or demolished Palestinian houses, destroyed their crops, stolen their water but gave back the sewage, denied them electricity, fenced them off from their families, arrested their children, randomly raided their houses at night, restricted their movement in their own land, bullied them on the streets, fenced them in, and worst of all, shot them when they peacefully protest.

It is accepted internationally that Palestine is an Apartheid country, though our current Government and the likes of Donald Trump seem to ignore the situation.

When, as a boy, I was taught to hate Nazism, was I being radicalised?

Were we judgemental when in Apartheid South Africa, black citizens rebelled against the white supremacists?

In World War II did we expect the French Resistance to show friendship and understanding to their Nazi oppressors? Were our Home Guards just troublemakers spoiling for a fight?

I ask Miriam Cates, when you visited Palestine, who supplied the blinkers?

Did you not see the military oppression on every street corner Or is it just coincidental that your claimed recollections follow the party line?