Letter: The attacks on October 7 2023 should be seen as a wake-up call for us all

It is not sensible to appease outward signs of anti-semitism in our midst and even to tolerate them.

On September 30, 1938 Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich and a meeting with Adolf Hitler with a message that we all wanted to hear and believe: 'Peace for our time'.

It was a delusion and soon to be shattered by the brutality of events and particularly by Kristallnacht on the night of November 9, 1938.

Such a date is now October 7, 2023. It is a wake-up call for us all and we do indeed need to wake up after a long slumber since the end of World War II.

Armistice Day 2023 ought not to have been disturbed by Palestinian protest marches. It is a sacred day for us, the British, in our island homes.

It is not too much to ask those who have come to live among us to respect it and us. There are other days. Indeed, as we have seen, there are many other days for legitimate protest.

Perhaps we need to establish for the future days on which protest are not acceptable. Surely Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday are such days.

They are days of reflection and friendship. And they express our love of and desire for peace.

Those of us living in Ireland still remember the horror of Enniskillen on Remembrance Sunday, November 8, 1987.

It is a mark of a civilised county that we can show respect for beliefs that we do not ourselves share.

I did not know until the last week that Sue-Ellen Cassiana Braverman, nee Fernandes, is a Buddhist and her husband is Jewish. No wonder she spoke out to us as she did as Home Secretary.

I respect her for that and wish her well in the future.

It says much for her and for us that she speaks for so many of us – something that seems widely agreed in the midst of so much anger and indignation.

Gerald Morgan, Dublin