Begin repairing relationships in Mideast

In his column “Sioux in U.S. and Jews in Israel are both Indigenous peoples”(Friday, April 5), Keith Raffel finds it incredible that the Oglala Sioux tribe has thrown its support behind “Palestinian Arabs,” not the Israeli Jews who are “the Indigenous people in the land known … as Canaan, Judea, Palestine and Israel.” Why would a historically marginalized group of Native Americans champion a powerful Israeli government hellbent on eliminating the Palestinians (the truly marginalized) with its encroaching settlements, forced removals and demolitions, heavy-handed policing tactics and now scorched-earth war in Gaza? Mr. Raffel seems to have forgotten that the Jews (Israelites) weren't the one and only “Indigenous” people of the area.

What about the Canaanites, from whom both Israelites and Palestinians descended? Don't they have a right to the land that many of them have inhabited from time immemorial?

It's time to get past the Cain and Abel drama of this broken record and work on repairing family relationships.

Linda Craft

Palatine