Subhi Awad, Mullumbimby
With respect to Danny Wakil (letters, 19 February), his assertions are unfortunately unreliable. How can it be true that Palestinians (such as myself), who have no army or power, refuse to compromise, but instead, want to continue to fight tanks and drones with stones and home-made rockets forever until we impossibly murder all the Jews or drive them into the sea?
It cannot possibly be true that we want all the bombs, siege and brutality instead of a normal life. You think we want our children to endure such bloody hardship? At the last, mostly non-violent protest at the Gaza border, 28,000 Palestinians were injured as Israeli snipers were shooting (with illegal exploding ‘butterfly’ bullets) civilians, including medics, journalists, people in wheelchairs, and even women just waving flags. The vast majority were 400m from the fence – way out of stone-throwing range. There were 7,000 amputees as a result.
If anyone would like to know the facts, word for word, of the peace offers and concessions made by the Palestinian nation, they can be viewed at the Jewish virtual library – ‘Palestinian Papers’. Here is analysis on it from The Guardian https://tinyurl.com/rh2bhaq.
You will see nothing but grovelling from the Palestinian side. We have offered never to have an army, for Israel to keep nearly all of their illegal settlements, most of Jerusalem, and very strong indications to give up the right of return. Israel still refused. There is nothing more that we can offer and still have a viable state.
The dominant political party in Israel has on its website that there will never be an independent Palestine. They were repeatedly voted into power on this mandate.
We have offered all that is humanly possible to achieve peace – it is the majority of Israelis who do not want peace and continue to vote for parties that ensure that there can never be peace.
The peace offer is on the table, all Israelis need to do is reach out and grab it – please just grab it for all of our sakes.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
