The rising tide of violence in Israel and Palestine The present Israeli government does not get it, or does not want to. Its minister of public security, Gilad Erdan, condemning the violence engulfing Israel (Opinion, 16 October) calls for “meaningful negotiations” with the Palestinians, but gives no sign of signifying what he means by “meaningful”. He is concerned, understandably, about “a situation that affects our daily lives in our country”, but says nothing about the creeping annexation of Palestinian lands promoted by his government, contrary to international law, creating “facts on the ground” which affect the daily lives of Palestinians in their country, and which is the single biggest factor inciting the current wave of murder and mayhem.
Earlier this week you featured an article by Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian leader who has spent much of his life in Israeli jails (Opinion, 12 October). He urged Israelis to accept “the unalterable truth: the last day of occupation will be the first day of peace”. For an end to the violence and for the basis of meaningful negotiations, Mr Erdan and his government need look no further.
Benedict BirnbergLondon
Predictably, the pressure cooker situation in Israel has finally exploded with spasms of violence by Palestinians and Israelis. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his rightwing government have incited much of the violence by expanding Jewish settlements and ignoring settler terrorist attacks. About 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Settler terrorism has been ongoing for decades with impunity. The cycle of violence will continue as long as the US government continues to show its blatant partiality by sending huge shipments of weapons to Israel and deflecting censure and criticism by using its veto power at the UN.
Israel has reached a South Africa moment, when more and more European countries and American Jews are voicing frustration and anger at the deteriorating situation, and lending support to the growing BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement. By assuring Israel of its unshakeable support and alliance, regardless of its appalling history of human rights violations and suffocating occupation, the US is complicit in the ongoing mayhem.
Jagjit Singh
Los Altos, California, USA
• Palestinian sympathisers ignore that the reason there is an Israeli occupation and no Palestinian state is because the Palestinians have consistently refused one. They refused the offer of a “two-state” solution by the Peel commission in 1937. They refused a similar offer by the UN partition plan in 1947, and they refused Israel’s offer in 1967 to return most of the territories it had captured (after a third war for survival and, incidentally, long before there was an occupation or settlements) in exchange for peace. Similarly, in 2000 and in 2008, they refused Israel’s offers which would have given them a state on some 95% of the West Bank, all of Gaza and parts of Jerusalem.
They refused because to accept such an offer would have meant conceding Israel’s right to exist and this they will not do. They would rather have nothing than allow Israel anything. This has always been the Palestinian leadership’s approach and all the conflagrations must be understood in this context. Most Israelis would be only too glad to terminate their occupation, but only if there is genuine peace (as materialised with Egypt), not a daily barrage of rockets – as happened when it withdrew from Gaza – or waves of killers.
Joshua Rowe
Manchester
• As social workers whose professional lives are focused daily on increasing child safety, we echo Gilad Erdan’s words on the need to build a different future, “for the sake of all our children”. However, our contacts in recent years with Palestinian social workers, therapists, community leaders and ordinary people make his depiction of a Palestinian “culture of hatred” completely unrecognisable to us. Despite suffering many years of a brutal occupation, which includes the inhuman treatment of Palestinian children, locked up in Israeli jails in contravention of international human rights conventions, the Palestinians we meet have maintained their dignity and humanity. They also continue to call for their liberation and freedom, and in this they need the world’s support, for this is the only way towards a safe future, for all our children.
Guy Shennan and Rupert Franklin-Lester
Palestine-UK Social Work Network
• It may be true as Adam Levick writes (Letters, 14 October) that Israel is under attack by waves of Arabs armed with rocks, knives, firebombs and automatic rifles. Alas, only if US foreign policy allowed the arming of Palestinians with M1 Abrams tanks and F-18 jets could the Israelis claim they are victims of an injustice, rather than denying they are the perpetrators.
Al-Sharif Abdullah bin Al-Hussein
London
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/16/the-rising-tide-of-violence-in-isra...