The Middle East is engulfed in its deepest crisis in many years, with Israel embroiled in conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and now with Iran.

The issue has been the subject of fierce debate on our Letters Pages.

Last week, two readers fiercely condemned Israel’s actions.

👉 Read those letters here

On Monday, a correspondent responded with a plea for support for Israel.

👉 Read that letter here

Today, however, a reader argues that we cannot negotiate with a government that has religious and nationalist extremists within its ranks.

John Milne of Uddingston writes:

"John Kennedy (Letters, September 30) says he supports 'any negotiations that can lead to a ceasefire and the cessation of bombing and killing and the waste and destruction of innocent lives'. Surely obvious to any decent compassionate person.

However, he must recognise that negotiations have been going on in one form or another since not long after the Israeli state was established in 1948 with some 750,000 of Palestinians being expelled from or fleeing from their homes.

UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) tells us that there are today some 5.9 million Palestinian refugees (obviously mainly descendants of those expelled) who need the services of UNRWA. Not all of these refugees stay in camps but can still use the services provided by UNRWA.

For those who do UNRWA tells us 'conditions in the camps are generally poor, with high population density, cramped living conditions and inadequate basic infrastructure such as roads and sewers'.

Is it any surprise that 'thousands of young Palestinians are growing up with only one aim in life: revenge' (Doug Maughan, Letters, September 25)?

There is another factor to which Mr Kennedy does not refer in his letter: Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, both religious/ethno-nationalist extremists whom Benjamin Netanyahu brought into his cabinet.

Invoking divine support Ben-Gvir said he had 'warned the prime minister that if God forbids it, Israel will not enter a ceasefire'. There is no way Ben-Gvir’s God, or I assume Smotrich’s, is going to give Mr Netanyahu such permission, their God being surely one of the earlier war-gods from whom Judaism has moved on.

I ask Mr Kennedy how we can possibly negotiate with such extremists upon whose support Benjamin Netanyahu is so dependent."