Image by Getty Images

Dear Jane,

I am a Philadelphian who has admired your journalism and writing for many years.

I read with great interest your piece in the January Forward magazine about your Encounter trip in the West Bank this past November.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis of the crisis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

I agree positive recognition is deserved by Palestinians who dissent and protest non-violently.

When you report, however, that Near East Consulting’s latest polling shows roughly two-thirds of Palestinians “favor a peaceful approach to ending the conflict”, what does this mean? Do two-thirds of Palestinians ratify the existence forever of Israel as a Jewish State and give up right of return to land their families lived on before the summer of 1948? If so please ask Encounter to ask American Jews to call for an immediate democratic vote among Palestinians in the West Bank as a step toward ending the occupation.

I don’t know if an eventual answer of a federated United States of Palestine composed of two sovereign states could ever work, but shouldn’t Israelis and Jews everywhere know by referendum whether a peaceful resolution means a Jewish majority in at least one of these component states?

The Occupation must end. But are two-thirds of the Palestinians who are polled ready to vote to ratify a Jewish majority state in Palestine?

If they really are, let’s move beyond Encounter and ask the EU to push for an immediate monitored vote in the West Bank.

Are the Israelis ready for this? Are the West Bank Palestinians?

Thank you for everything you do for the making your readers (and writers) THINK.

Yours,

Ramy Djerassi, East Falls

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount