In his Worcester News column on August 30, John Phillpott accused ‘the Left’ of being intolerant and said that ‘it loves to criticise Israel because it serves as a convenient smokescreen for its underlying anti-semitism’. His hypocrisy would be amusing if it wasn’t so serious. I resent the inference that I am racist towards Jews because I am horrified by the killing of innocent Palestinians.

Hajo Meyer, a Holocaust survivor, who died on August 23, said: “an anti-semite used to be someone who doesn’t like Jews; now it’s someone who Zionists don’t like.”

Neil Laurenson

Worcester