THE hysterical response from some quarters to the refreshingly common-sense remarks by Liberal Democrat MP Dr Jenny Tonge about Palestinian suicide bombers shows that hypocrisy and double standards are as rampant as ever in the country that went to war over the Falklands and blew to pieces or incinerated hundreds of thousands of innocent German civilians using its own brand of 'suicide bombers'.

The Palestinians have no armament industry, no nuclear weapons, no army or air force with which to regain their stolen land.

A land seized by armed violence and held onto with daily acts of murderous violence, with a bit more seized every day, destroying the homes and livelihoods of its inhabitants; a land whose people are every day subjected to provocations and humiliations.

All this is sufficiently well documented to enable any thinking and fair-minded person to understand what drives so many Palestinians to feel that it is worth sacrificing their own lives to take some of their oppressors with them.

I wonder, did the forebears of those who condemn Palestinians so readily today condemn just as readily the Jewish 'terrorist' Herschel Grynszpan when he shot a German diplomat in Paris in 1938, giving the Nazis the pretext for the 'Kristallnacht' programme?

Martin Topping

Lyddon Way