Clare choir, sing your heart out!

The condemnation of Clare College's proposed choir tour to Israel and Palestine over the Christmas holidays is tragic and shocking. Do the pro-Palestinian activists, not recognise that Israel, home to Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy sites, is the perfect destination for a Christmas choir tour? Do they not welcome this praiseworthy and peaceful act of interfaith work?

How many other countries in the Middle East would welcome an English Christian choir to celebrate Christmas in their midst with song and joy?

Nowhere else in the region is there the religious and cultural diversity that the choir will experience in Israel. Their visit takes in Bethlehem in the West Bank, and Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Karmiel in Israel, including a Christmas Eve performance in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, followed by Midnight Mass in St. George's Cathedral, Jerusalem. The fact that Clare College is repeating its trip of 2000 indicates its success and illustrates how much there is to see, experience and learn in Israel.

I remember visiting Jerusalem a couple of years ago, and filling with emotion at the picture-perfect view of the Western Wall, Judaism's most sacred site, and the Golden Dome of the Rock Mosque, which stand side by side.

It's an inspirational sight, the tensions they cause both omnipresent and yet seemingly removed as you watch people pray at or admire them. The seaport Haifa is a multicultural model with a mixed population of Jews and Christian Arabs, as well as it being home to the Baha'i faith.

In contrast, Tel-Aviv, Israel's young person's capital is an extremely secular, cosmopolitan city. It has more shops, restaurants, beach bars and clubs than even the wildest Cambridge student could dream of.

Why should Clare choir not make the most of all this? Apparently travel is a political act. Wrong. Apparently this visit is an indication of the "acceptability of the Israeli rogue state" and the protests against it are part of a campaign that asks us to cease working with Israeli organisations.

Wrong again. Israel is a flourishing and diverse democracy with strong human rights' movement and independent legal system. To call it a "rogue state" unfairly equates it with the totalitarian dictatorships of Iran and North Korea.

I wonder if those who oppose the choir tour realise that a boycott of Israel would also cause detrimental effects on an international scale. The EU, Israel's largest trading partner, has been strengthened by ongoing economic, academic and scientific links. Israel has given many Asian countries free Tsunami detectors.

With the largest percent in the world of PhDs for the population, it has given us numerous Nobel Prize winners. Students can benefit from participation in the international Erasmus exchange scheme, and Israel facilitates contact between youths from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds.

Microsoft Israel has contributed to the development of Windows NT software as well as other globally recognised IT security and telecommunications technologies. The list goes on.

I'm British and proud of it. This doesn't mean that I support 100% of Government policy and I challenge you to find even the most enthusiastic Gordon Brown supporter who does.

The beauty of democracy is that we are entitled to different opinions. You may not approve of our involvement in Europe, the system of university tuition fees, the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, but we'd be rightly horrified if anyone challenged the right of Britain to exist as a result of these differences or demanded a boycott of everything British. Why is Israel different?

Israel's democratically elected Parliament, the Knesset, ranges from the very left to the very right of the political spectrum and truly represents the country's cultural and religious diversity. One quarter of Israeli citizens are not Jewish, including a vibrant mixture of Muslims, Christians, Druze, Circassians, Bahá'í and others, who all enjoy the vote and equal rights.

Those who complain about Clare choir's trip may dispute the Knesset's decisions on foreign policy, but it is ludicrous and irrational to challenge the existence of a democratic country and to desire to boycott it.

Severing ties will not lead to peace. Non-political relations with other countries help us gain through friendship what we lose through feuding, and can contribute to political reconciliation.

On both a personal and national level, Israel has plenty to offer us and we'd be fools not to take advantage.

Clare choir will have an enjoyable, exciting and enriching experience. I hope they sing their hearts out and do Cambridge proud! If only my singing voice was more like Beyonce than Shrek, I'd definitely be joining them.

Sophie Allweis