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ditor: 

When will the Daily Planet realize that Americans who work to express solidarity with the Palestinian people are not “Palestinian activists,” but rather a very diverse movement of individuals of all faiths and ethnicities who are appalled by the ongoing Israeli abuses of Palestinian rights and America’s generous support of Israel’s crimes? One need not be Palestinian to realize that Palestinians are suffering under Israel’s domination. 

Furthermore, why do you continue to treat the question of Apartheid against Palestinians as though it were a subjective matter of interpretation?  

The question is simple: either Palestinians suffer under Apartheid-like conditions or they do not – but how can you expect interviews with activists in Berkeley to decide this matter? Why don’t you seek the first-hand sources that document Israel’s crimes against Palestinians from international human rights organizations, the United Nations, and the dozens of Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations? You might also examine the testimony of actual Palestinians living under Israeli rule and occupation, who will relate their decades-long – and continuing – experience of dispossession, colonization, land confiscation, murder, and repression at the hands of their Israeli colonizers. 

On a trip to Palestine in 1989 Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa.” 

Greg Hoadley 

Oakland