Both sides need to be brought together in the Israel-Palestine conflict - Yorkshire Post Letters

Gerald Hodsgon wrote - YP letters 21.6.25 – looking for hope in the Middle East. Allow me to consider how we might at least improve things.

On June 19, a Palestinian man, 48 years old, was shot in the southern West Bank. The Israeli report was that the man had been in an altercation with Jewish settlers and Israeli Defence Force soldiers. The soldiers had arrived and the man was throwing large rocks at them.

The village mayor’s separate account was that the settlers had set fire to some Palestinian fields in the neighbourhood, the locals were trying to extinguish the flames, and that both soldiers and settlers had shot at the local man.

Put aside the dilemma about knowing which of these reports to trust, but just recognise that a man ‘throwing large rocks’ (how large? how large a rock can be thrown effectively?) at both highly protected soldiers and (probably) armed settlers was shot.

A second Palestinian man was shot in the stomach and is reportedly in serious condition (Haaretz, 19.6.25). And consider that the well protected and armed soldiers could work out no other way to reduce the potential of ‘large rocks’ being thrown. The simple dispensability of a life when it is not the life of someone on your side.

I have been to Israel-Palestine regularly in recent years and ordinary people on both sides say that they want peace and that probably a lot of people on the other side also want peace.

But here we are, with so many unable to be brave enough to put that into action, to try someone different. So all credit to organisations within Israel like Combatants for Peace, Breaking the Silence, Standing Together, and others, who look for ways to navigate differences and bring together people from both communities to work for a better goal for all people out there. They recognise that endless war and critically endless occupation, will only sow endless discontent and further violence.

These groups recognise there is no quick fix, but at least they seem to be on an important path, by recognising and affirming that each of us wants to live a happy, fulfilled, supported and positive life alongside those we connect with each day.

That goes for people in Israel – and yes also for those in Palestine, and it is no less than we want for ourselves here in Yorkshire. There is a local group supporting Standing Together in Sheffield and the potential of a new group in Leeds. A wise friend of mine in Jerusalem would say encourage them all you possibly can.