SIR – I read in the Worcester News last Friday (March 27) that local businessman Richard Hewitt made an official complaint about the recommendation to twin Worcester with Gaza because it apparently “caused damage to the international reputation of the city”. The Worcester News added that the recommendation “sparked outrage”.

News of the twinning motion went global and it would appear that many people feel that Worcester’s reputation has in fact been enhanced by Councillor Amos’s “humanitarian gesture”. News of the motion sparked respect for a city that many people may not even have heard of until they heard about the motion.

I believe that Councillor Amos and those who supported the motion ought to be congratulated for their efforts to express solidarity with the people of Gaza. Whatever one’s views of Hamas – a democratically-elected government – surely it is worthwhile to show support for the people of Gaza, symbolically as well as practically?

Hamas is said to be a terrorist organisation but Israel (read: the Israeli government) has committed numerous acts of terrorism against Palestinian people for decades. I still contend that if Jerusalem had been subjected to similar treatment as the people of Gaza have been recently, a motion to twin Worcester with it would have been unanimously approved.

It is because Gaza is governed by an ‘official enemy’ that some people in Worcester appear to be unable to understand, let alone support, a gesture of goodwill for people who live in conditions beyond our worst nightmares.

NEIL LAURENSON,
Rainbow Hill.