Jonathan Freedland is correct to describe the Israel-Palestine conflict as a clash of right versus right (The tragedy of the Israel-Palestine conflict is this: underneath all the horror is a clash of two just causes, 28 August). But he overlooks the power differential within which this clash occurs – the very severe constraints on Gazans over the last 16 years, and the Israeli military protecting Jewish settlers taking over more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank. This is not a clash between equals, but between an occupying force and a subjugated population. But there is no military solution to this conflict. A negotiated compromise, as in Northern Ireland, where both parties are recognised as equal political agents, can be the only way forward.
Dr Raia Browning
Oxford
• Thank you, Jonathan Freedland, for a perspective on the Palestine-Israel conflict that I share. In 1960, as a student visiting Poland, I went to Auschwitz. I have never forgotten the horror of what I saw there. A few years later I travelled in the Middle East and met Palestinian refugees. They were gentle, hospitable people who mourned the loss of their homes and land when Israel was created. I have never forgotten them either. What is happening now in Gaza is unbearable. If neither “side” can find leaders who see both sides, what hope is there?
Janet Dobson
Dunnington, North Yorkshire
