PREDICTABLY, events over recent weeks will have acted as a recruiting sergeant for anti- Semitism and Muslim extremism.

One as yet untried route to resolution of this decades-long bitter conflict is identifying and studying the various casual factors and working on them.

An independent, objective tribunal, inquiry or whatever could undertake this task with all parties in a bid to find an acceptable solution.

The underlying causes have never been addressed mainly due to the blind, unwise, inflexible and, yes, cowardly stance by the US.

Its UN voting record over the decades says it all. Anything meaningful for the Palestinians is invariably vetoed by the US.

Israel has broken, ignored or otherwise treated with contempt sanctions aplenty down the years with its occupation, illegal settlements and land confiscations; but no sanctions or other penalties ever seem to apply.

Why?

Similarly, the UK, which was the original guarantor to both parties of homeland and statehood, has displayed timidity and cowardice in not daring to step out of line with the US at the UN.

So while the Prime Minister is reduced to mealy-mouthed, punches pulled, near neutral comments on recent Israeli extreme brutalities and deservedly loses a talented, principled minister, we again enter with others into superficial short-term, subjective tinkering at the margins of this major problem with no better than sticking plaster short-term solutions to offer.

For goodness sake, and before it is too late (if it isn’t already), we must go after the main underlying causes.

This generation and future generations deserve better from us.

Eamonn Murtagh, Sedgefield.