The wall of a building in Palestinian village Masafer Yatta in the West Bank, June 6. Photo by Alessandro Levati/Getty Images

Re: “Palestinian terror should not be rewarded with a state,” by Gedalia Guttentag.

To the editor:

When I read that the horrors of Oct. 7 means Palestinians don’t deserve a state of their own, but the article that says little to nothing about the oppression of Palestinians, and nothing about the terrorism of the Jewish Zionist Irgun militia committed in the 1930s and ’40s, it made me wonder if the writer knew the history of the formation of the Jewish state.

Palestinian history was ignored. The Nakba was not mentioned. The Palestinians did not create the Holocaust, yet are treated as if they did. The area of Palestine long held a diverse people peacefully. But when early European settlers arrived in Palestine claiming that the area had no people, it was a repeat of the U.S. colonization of Native Americans, even if it meant destroying the civilization that was here. 

Israelis’ fear of Palestinians is built on the unrecognized plight of Palestinians caused by the Israelis’ upheaval of their lives. The closing off of Gazans behind a wall that some in Israel do not even recognize, the continued takeover of Palestinian land by settlers — all these factors add to the despair of a people. 

I do not condone terrorism like what occurred on Oct. 7. I do know, however, that it comes from something, like starvation comes from lack of food. 

Even if we decide that Palestinians in Gaza deserve no peace because of what Hamas did on Oct. 7, that will not solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The sooner we can understand the relationship between oppression and terrorism, the sooner we might actually start to build the real peace everyone deserves.

— Joan Broadfield
Chester, Pennsylvania

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