Aug. 14, 2026 Editor, The News-Gazette: In a recent response to Sarah Wilson’s letter, Bennett Ross identifies the root cause of the violence in Gaza and the West Bank today as Palestinian leadership’s refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist — a stance he thinks is antisemitic. Mr. Ross is not wrong to note the prevalent Palestinian hostility toward a Jewish state. The story has another side, however: Israel has systematically worked to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state since at least 1967. If refusing one state’s sovereignty is antisemitic, denying another’s is its moral equivalent.
Notably, this denial remains core Israeli policy today. Even Israel’s most left-wing Zionist parties today omit Palestinian statehood from their platforms, demanding permanent military supremacy and unrestricted freedom of military action —terms that effectively render Palestinian sovereignty impossible. And this is the Israeli left!
More troubling still is Mr. Ross’ placing of the blame for the violence today solely on the Palestinians. I fail to see how the historic leadership refusals he mentions, or even the horrific Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023, can possibly justify the deaths of over 20,000 Gazan children (see UNICEF report from Aug. 6, 2026), denials of chemo evacuations, destruction of almost all water plants and hospitals in Gaza, bombing of entire families to target mid-level Hamas operatives, systematic torture of thousands of uncharged detainees (see B’Tselem report from Jan. 20, 2026), and much more.
Evil in response to evil remains evil.
For more details about the war in Gaza, see https://bearing-witness. com/; https://gisha.org/en/ data-gaza-290326-eng/.
RESCHEF AGAM-SEGAL Lexington
