• THOSE at the recent protests, including that last Saturday outside Sir Keir Starmer’s office, whatever their backgrounds, Muslim and Jewish, and to my knowledge Quaker, Hindu, Christian, Sikh… overwhelmingly shared a desire for peace, expressing our shared humanity.

The intergenerational trauma experienced by Jews cannot be healed, and Israel cannot be secure, while such trauma is inflicted, in the name of self-defence, on the Palestinians following the Hamas atrocities of October 7.

Even if Hamas in Gaza is destroyed, the relentless slaughter of civilians, including so many children, can only furnish fertile soil for violence and hatred in the future; and this, as we have seen, has an impact on our own streets.

Sir Keir Starmer may well be our next prime minister. I hope that he will do everything in his power to work with those who desire peace, to achieve a just and lasting political solution rooted in international law.

It will be hard work; in some ways it is easier to resort to military methods. But there are plenty of people on all sides who will share the desire for peace.

GOPA ROY, NW5