The following letter appeared in the Australian Financial Review (10/4) with a response to it appearing (12/4)
Israeli dominion and the new apartheid
Re “Netanyahu vows to annex West Bank,” (April 8). It comes as no surprise to Palestinians that Benjamin Netanyahu has abandoned the Two State solution.
There are more than 700,000 illegal settlers in East Jerusalem (the capital of Palestine) and the West Bank, and Israel controls the entire geography of historical Palestine.
There is only one currency used throughout, only one border control entity, Israel controls the birth and death registers of Palestinians, Israel controls radio frequency and internet spectrums, Israel controls building permits and access to the outside world, and now 50 per cent of the population that Israel controls are not being allowed to vote in this election.
Two peoples, one land, two sets of rules. The dictionary has a word for this – apartheid.
Nasser Mashni
Palestinian rejections roadblock to peace
Nasser Mashni (Letters, April 10) omitted the vital context that the Palestinian national movement rejected opportunities to create a Palestinian state in 1937, 1947, 1948-1967, 1977, 2000-01, 2007-08, 2010 and 2013-14.
According to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2015, Israel’s 2008 offer – which he rejected “out of hand” – included the equivalent of 100 per cent of the West Bank, Gaza and a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem.
Eighty years of ongoing Palestinian rejectionism, not Benjamin Netanyahu, is the true impediment to a two-state solution becoming a reality.
Athol Morris