No Lauren Booth is the step-sister of that other Israel love, Cherie Booth. Her father was Anthony Booth an English actor who starred in a programme called Till Death Us Do Part. She is a rabidly anti-Israel.

As a past president of the Cambridge Union I find your description of its operations both ludicrous and offensive, The audience would not have ben hostile nor was the Israeli victory unexpected. You imply that the organizers set things up so that Israel would lose.This is not true.If they had wanted to ensure such a result they would have asked two left-wing idiots to propose the motion. They spoke first and vigorously but you cannot imply from that that anyone other than a few Muslims and Marxists were impressed. The Cambridge is NOT one of Europe'a anti-Israel strongholds. That is a lie and the author has produced no evidence to back up this assertion. To choose this title for a debate was to induce a controversial debate and get a big audience. That is all. Everyone knew in advance that Israel would win.

It is not a given that Israel will win any debate either at a university or in the international forum. As far as I am aware this is the first debate of such a nature that Israel has won. The very title of the debate was deliberately provocative and deeply offensive. You would not allow any other state to be described in such a way. If one proposed the same motion substituting any Islamic state for Israel, there would an outcry, (probably a fatwa) and the union would be accused of being Islamaphobic. Given what is happening on UK campuses as far as anti-Semitism and rabid anti-Israelism is concerned, I find your complacancy very worrying. As a past president of the Cambridge Union you and other student representatives should have done more to stop this sort of racism in its tracks. I am only glad that neither I nor any of my children attend a UK university today where the atmosphere from students and staff towards Israel and by extension Jewish students is increasingly unpleasant and hostile. Student unions all over the UK are not doing enough to combat this atmosphere of intimidation. They are not doing enough to stand up for the rights of Jewish and Israeli students to express themselves freely about Israel on campus. A few years ago, the student union at Manchester University tried to ban not the Israel Society but the Jewish Society and there have been repeated attempts at UK universities to do this, it is only a matter of time before those that wish to see this happen will succeed.

"Long live Israel and those who will speak for her" True. Sooner the people realise that Israel is NOT a rogue State the better for us all. Long live Israel, shalom.

From other web articles on this debate, it seems that one of the "few students from the pro-Palestinian camp" who made the pro-Israeli arguments was in fact a very strongly Zionist student and not pro-Palestinian at all. Although I'm a strong Zionist and would hope for the outcome, it sounds like a set-up that this individual identified himself as "pro-Palestinian".

No doubt about it, Ran Gidor is a class act