Your correspondent Harry Lesser (Letters, 14 June) really mustn’t be allowed to get away with his erroneous assertion that the Palestinians are equally responsible for the collapse of peace talks. May I draw his attention to Professor Avi Shlaim’s The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab world? This comprehensive and unflinching account of relations between the state of Israel and her neighbours makes it incontrovertibly clear that “the Middle East peace process is being held hostage to the vagaries of Israel’s internal politics” (p. xiv of the Penguin edition). For a more recent account of the process, he might like to consult Ahron Bregman’s Cursed Victory: a history of Israel and the Occupied Territories, published this year. If Pope Francis’ efforts