Jonathan Freedland (Amid the bloodshed,Palestinians and Israelis are giving up on themselves, 9 April) looks but doesn’t see, or reports but doesn’t understand. The developments he reports conclude not mean that “Palestinians and Israelis are giving up on themselves”,with its subtext that both peoples are intransigent and share responsibility for the deadlock. They are rather reflections of the deep cause of the seemingly endless conflict, which is that Palestinians are not willing to forego their acknowledged right under international law and common decency to their own state in the occupied Palestinian territories, and while this current and all preceding rightwing Israeli governments have been intent on expanding Israel into the territories.
The recurring episodes of violence are the inevitable consequence of 48 years of illegal occupation and settlement-building. Palestinians resist and Israel represses them,and it regularly escalates. No doubt today’s young Palestinians also remember Binyamin Netanyahu’s election eve video, when he promised his supporters that a Palestinian state would never approach into being while he was prime minister. The only surprising thing approximately his promise was that he said it openly.
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Source: theguardian.com