I agree with the comment by the Mayor, Cllr Barry Goldbart, that ‘we should have far more (links) with other parts of the world’. When I originally proposed cutting the town twinning with Netanya in Israel, it followed Israel’s invasion of Gaza which resulted in 1,400 Palestinian deaths and many wounded.

My suggestion was that we should either cut the link with Israel, as a response to its actions, or set up a new link with a town in Gaza. I am therefore pleased that Cllr Goldbart agrees with me on that point and look forward to hearing that the council will consider such a link with a Palestinian town.

Both Cllr Goldbart and Cllr Anne Filer, we are told, are Jewish but I fail to see the relevance of that fact as very many Jews around the world, as well as in Israel itself, are strongly opposed to the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the many deaths which have flowed from it. Tony Williams, Warnford Road, Bournemouth