To the editor,

In the Israel-Palestine conflict, one must try to understand both sides and realize that the two populations labor under corrupt and brutal leadership that together continue to inflame hostilities and push a peaceful solution further out of reach.

The Palestinians haven’t had a chance to vote since 2006, and many do not support Hamas. And many peaceful Israelis have protested the hyper-militaristic Netanyahu government.

We can barely imagine the pain that both peoples are experiencing, the Israelis traumatized by Hamas’s terrorist attacks and the Palestinians’ neighborhoods literally rubbled by what even President Biden has called an “indiscriminate” bombing of civilian areas.

Tens of thousands of “dumb” bombs, many of them funded by US taxpayers, have leveled large areas of the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7. To date, between 18 and 20 thousand Gazans, 70% of whom are women and children, have been killed in Israel’s reprisals for the raids by Hamas. Without electricity, fuel, clean drinking water and housing, Gazans are the victims of what is being described as one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time.

This is no way to win the peace. We should heed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words:  “...an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It destroys communities and makes humanity impossible. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.”  

We must call on our elected representatives to demand a cease-fire in Gaza and halt the export of weapons that we now know will be used to violate human rights under international law.

We can also help by directing our year-end giving to such worthy aid organizations as the International Rescue Committee, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and others working heroically on behalf of people of good will everywhere to bring “peace on earth” a little closer to reality.  

Thomas R. Smith

River Falls