The Palestinian people will be pleased that the Security Council of the UN has passed a motion supporting the establishment of a state of Israel.

It is significant that this was proposed by the United States of America.

It is to be hoped that this is more than a cynical ploy to help the US in its efforts to gain support for its plans to broaden its war on terrorism and to ensure a favourable reception of Vice President Cheney during his visit to the Middle East.

The invasion and slaughter in the refugee camps in the Occupied Territories demands an immediate and robust condemnation from all governments, particularly our own.

This evokes the spectre of the Sabra and Shatila massacres carried out with the connivance of Ariel Sharon twenty years ago.

Palestinian lives are routinely referred to by our media in terms which make them worth less than Israeli lives. An army pitting its might against people who have no weapons other than a few rifles is portrayed as an equal struggle. Pictures on the Internet show Israeli soldiers photographing each other with their kill, tanks driving around with bodies of Palestinians displayed on them.

These are some of the atrocities we do not see in the mainstream media.

The admission by Foreign Office minister Ben Bradshaw that the assurances by Israel that British arms were not in use in the Occupied territories have been broken should shame us all. It is time for the British people to make a stand for Palestinian human rights and for the British government to press for implementation of the UN resolutions.

SIMON JONES, French Road, Blackburn.