THERE is a strange mismatch between the West’s response to Putin’s support for the pro-Russian separatists and to Israel’s atrocious attack on Gaza.

In the first case, a battery of sanctions has been put in place by the US and the EU which aims to get Putin to reverse his policies; but in the second, there is no condemnation at all.

Israel has carte blanche to do what it wants, however unscrupulous and ruthless; no question of sanctions there, rather the reverse. The US will continue to bankroll Israel, whatever it does.

Alone of the nations of the Middle East, Israel is allowed by the West to have nuclear weapons. Israel is the poster boy for Western imperialism.

Characteristic of imperialism is that it is concerned with power alone and not with International law, or indeed any kind of justice.

That is why the US never apologised to the Iranians for shooting down a civilian Airbus with maximum loss of life, nor to the Japanese for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And I well remember Western indifference to the fact that the pre-invasion sanctions against Iraq were responsible for thousands of child deaths.

Indeed all the major parties at Westminster supported the sanctions, and some of us remember our futile attempts to get any of Bolton’s then MPs to oppose them.

If the West had any regard for justice, it would explicitly demand that Israel lift the eight-year siege of Gaza, agree to evacuate the lands that it has illegally occupied and, if it is to have a separation wall, then where it cuts through Palestinian land, it should be re-routed. In other words that Israel should comply with international law which it has broken.

There can be no peace without justice. If the Palestinians are treated justly, then problems become soluble. We should remember Auden’s famous lines: “Those to whom evil is done/do evil in return.”

Malcolm Pittock St James Avenue Breightmet