An official displays a map of the divided town of Hebron, in the Israeli occupied West Bank, on February 17, 2020. – Around the time US President Donald Trump took office, a group of Israeli families more than 10,000 kilometres (6,000 miles) away started a wildcat settlement near the Dead Sea in the Palestinians territories. In the three years since, it has become the outpost of Kedem Arava, home to 40 families. It is believed to be the first Israeli settlement of the Trump era, and one of dozens built under the decade-long rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP) (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images) Image by Getty Images

Dear Editor,

Jodi Rudoren’s recent editorial raised an interesting point about when an attack should be classified as terrorism. However, this question barely scratches the surface of the complexities of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Consider, for instance, the question of asymmetry of the opposing sides. The editorial makes Israel, with its formidable armed forces, the Goliath, while painting the Palestinian people, said to have no option other than violence for opposing the occupation, as David. Yet, it is easy to argue that the roles should, in fact, be reversed. Tiny Israel has repeatedly triumphed when under attack by the armies of several nations (such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq).

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And why should we accept the argument that there is an Occupation at all? All Palestinians in Gaza have been living under Hamas rule since 2006. 95% of the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (called The West Bank by Jordanian occupiers between 1949 and 1967) have lived under the administration of the Palestinian Authority since 1993. True, the areas are not totally divorced from Israeli control, but they could have been, if the leaders had stopped the attacks and negotiated with Israel.

Unfortunately, for the Palestinian people, both Yasser Arafat (2000/2001) and Mahmoud Abbas (2008) flatly refused Israeli proposals for the establishment of the first-ever-to-exist Arab State of Palestine on essentially all of the disputed land, even with the possibility of shared governance in parts of Jerusalem.

Hamas used the 2005 withdrawal of all Jewish communities from Gaza to turn the area into a launching pad for attacks on Israeli population centers. Mahmoud Abbas announced his refusal to discuss the Trump administration’s peace plan years before its details were released.

Bottom line: Do people have the right to use force to achieve what they have refused to accept via diplomacy and negotiation? This editorial shed no light on that question.

Sincerely,

Toby Block

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