We must not give up on hope of a two-state solution

President Biden faces the daunting task of ensuring that both Israel receives appropriate reparation for the hideous assault on its citizens by Hamas, while avoiding a full-scale land assault on Gaza that can only inflict appalling mass casualties on beleaguered civilians.

Despite the laudable groundwork undertaken by his secretary of state Anthony Blinken in restraining Israel (so far) from a full-scale invasion – while progressing a potential escape and aid route for refugees into Egypt – the prospects for the crisis turning into a wider international conflagration remain.

The next few days of US-brokered negotiations in both Tel Aviv and Amman are perhaps as critical as the Camp David negotiations in 1978, in not only defusing the immediate crisis – but perhaps kick-starting a renewed search for the two-state solution that has so eluded US diplomatic initiatives for the past 50 years.

Paul Dolan

Cheshire

I’ve had eggs thrown at me on the street. I’ve had insults hurled at me by people in a passing car – all because of my learning disability, which marked me out as different. And I am not alone in my experience.

Hundreds of people in the UK face discrimination and abuse because of their learning disability or autism. We can all do better. This National Hate Crime Awareness Week [14-21 October], we need to call on the public to help stamp out learning disability hate crime for good. That includes the people who commit hate crime, but also those who watch on without intervening, or avoid interacting with people with learning disabilities altogether.

I want to live in a world where I can leave my front door without fear of abuse. Where I am free to travel at night, and where I can get onto an empty Tube carriage and feel relaxed, instead of terrified that someone could hurt me without others there to see.

We can all help tackle disability hate crime.

Dr Mark Brookes MBE

Advocacy Lead at Dimensions

More confusing Office for National Statistics information. Despite what they say about the rise in wages, the reality is we’ve never been worse off. Employers are not paying above inflation due to rising business overheads. That means that millions of us are still under the inflation figure for wage rises.

Coupled with this, prices continue to rise for energy and food. This continues to erode the money in our pockets, not to mention that we’re all now paying more tax than ever.

Taken in the round: stagnant growth, tax rises, fuel price rises, energy price rises and food price rises are killing working people.

Dale Hughes

Address Supplied

Some few weeks ago, the UK Animal Welfare Committee (AWC) published new recommendations concerning the welfare of farmed fish at the time of slaughter. The report was extensive and concluded that all farmed fish must be stunned at the time of slaughter, and that the government should absolutely legislate to ensure this.

Yet, recent investigations into UK fish farms have revealed CCTV footage showing that fish are not at all stunned prior to being killed, and that the slaughter process is absolutely brutal. This sort of treatment is egregious and unacceptable.

Legislation for fish slaughter and welfare has been historically tenuous – bearing in mind, the UK farms and slaughters around 65 million fish annually, and that fish are the second-most-farmed animal in the country.

All other animals farmed for food, in the UK, have detailed legal protections, and it makes no sense that fish are not protected in that same way.

Other countries in Europe, such as Norway, have already introduced laws to protect fish at the time of slaughter, and the UK absolutely must follow suit in that respect. We purport to be a civilised and ethical country, that cares about animal welfare. It’s of paramount importance that adequate pressure is put on government legislators to follow the AWC report and legislate accordingly, to protect these creatures from unnecessary pain and suffering.

Adrian Corrie

Glasgow