30 AUGUST 2003, Page 26

From P.L. Hill

Sir: I very much want to see Mel Gibson's film of the Passion. If the new film is accurate and sensitive, there is no need to remove anything because of so-called anti-Semitism, Jesus did not blame the Jewish people as a whole for his death. His actual words to Pilate make it clear that a single man was involved, 'the man who handed me over to you'. This was Caiaphas, high priest for the year, a spin doctor who had already spread the notion that one man should die for the people. This was deliberately aimed at Jesus, whose lack of political correctness had seriously alarmed the Sanhedrin, particularly as certain of its members secretly agreed with him.

P. L. Hill

Hertfordshire