To make peace, we must recognize plight of all
The Jews in Israel led by the right-wing Netanyahu government and backed by the United States have been treating the Palestinians as badly as Jews so often have been mistreated elsewhere.
"Largely cut off from the world and beset with border closures, militant Hamas leadership, human suffering, collapsing infrastructure, and high unemployment, Gazans' rage and resentment continue to fester through the generations," writes Storer H. Rowley in "An Israel-Hamas cease-fire for now, but can there ever be Mideast peace?" (Chicago Tribune, May 25)
Rowley also writes that Netanyahu "continues to support right-wing settlers intent on gobbling up more of predominantly Arab East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank."
In "Attacks on Jews over Israel are a gift to the right" (Chicago Tribune, May 26), Michelle Goldberg writes: "Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is often so shocking that just describing it neutrally seems defamatory; when Human Rights Watch decided, last month, to accuse Israel of the crime of apartheid, it was because the facts on the ground left it little choice."
Hamas is a violent organization bent on the destruction of Israel. But considering the mistreatment of Palestinians over the decades, such an organization was inevitable. If Hamas had not attacked Israelis, how much attention would mistreatment of Palestinians have received?
History has shown that there are few limits to how badly a more powerful group will mistreat a less powerful perceived adversary or "other" group.
Jews certainly can attest to this and we have to look no further than how Native Americans and Blacks have been, and still are, treated here.
Attacks on Jews in Europe and the United States are antihumanitarian just like the mistreatment of the Palestinians.
The United States can be a major force for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, which would reduce Mideast tensions and hostility to the United States.
To be an effective peacemaker, the United States must recognize equally the rights of both the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Richard Barsanti
Western Springs