Palestinian suffering continues

by Letters Editor · November 29, 2012

From Yvonne von Mayer, Johannesburg -�

I am disappointed that Andre du Chenne has allowed himself to be influenced by American and Israeli propaganda (October 31).

A wounded woman is carried on a stretcher from the scene of a bomb explosion in Tel Aviv, Israel. As the Palestinian-Israeli conflict intensified, Pope Benedict condemned the hostilities, saying hatred and violence are never an appropriate solution to problems. (CNS photo/Barak Pachter, Reuters)

It is not Israel that has to defend itself; it is the Palestinians who have to keep trying to regain what is rightfully theirs.

Why are Hezbollah and Hamas labelled extremists? Is it because their parties have Arabic names, or because their members are mainly (but by no means entirely) Muslims?

Hezbollah has been effective in Lebanon in a positive way and has many non-Muslim supporters.

Israel not only wants as much Palestinian territory as it can lay its hands on (as the illegal settlements in the West Bank show), but it also keeps a greedy eye on Lebanese territories. If not for Hezbollah, Israel might by now have pushed its way further into Lebanon.

Hamas is a legally elected political party, but has had to continue behaving like a liberation movement because the West does not recognise its status.

The history of Palestine since 1948 makes for unbearably painful reading. Palestinians have been suffering for more than 60 years, with no end in sight.