PUTNEY-People who study conflict resolution say that you can't win an argument on the basis of facts when the other side is coming from a place of feelings (and delusions). Nonetheless, facts are facts. In regards to the Apartheid-Free Pledge coming up for a vote in Brattleboro and Newfane, I want readers of The Commons to know:
• Israel is indeed an "apartheid" state. Palestinians are not allowed to drive on the same roads as Israelis. They need a special driver's license to go to a hospital on the other side of the "separation barrier" - a 20-foot-high wall snaking through the West Bank that both encloses and separates people in this disputed territory.
• Palestinian children heading to school and workers on their way to a job have to pass through checkpoints with military guards or AI facial recognition scanners. It is blatantly not true that people who live in Israel-Palestine "participate as equals in every aspect of society" as one writer claims ["'Baseless accusations' have no place on a town ballot," Letters, Feb. 12].
• Israel is by all means a "settler colonial" state. Israelis continue to seize land that Palestinians have lived on for generations - land that by deed and international agreements belongs to Palestinians. Israelis have renamed towns and villages, stolen water resources, destroyed olive groves, and established enclaves in the form of modern suburbs and outposts that encroach on Palestinian villages. Should the Bible really be the arbiter of Israelis' claim?...
My comments are in response to the selection of stories that aired on Weekend Edition Sunday on April 30. I believe that the Peoples Climate Movement should have been the featured story of the morning, and I was very disappointed that it didn't get more coverage. The lead story...