Palestinians

Re “Real Issue: Israeli, Palestinian Nationalism,” Commentary, Oct. 25: It is beyond my understanding how one can profess to support the so-called “Law of Return,” which gives Jews all over the world the “right” to return to that part of Palestine which the West made into modern-day Israel, but yet at the same time assert that Palestinians shouldn’t have equal opportunity to go back to their own lands and villages.

The land now called Israel was inhabited by Palestinians for 2,000 years. Regardless of the high moral ground claimed by Zionists and their supporters in the creation of modern-day Israel, the fact is that Zionism, in its Palestinian instantiation, is a racist and apartheid system, one dependent on the continued oppression and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Palestinians. The only people who have a right to complete and unconditional return to the area stretching from Gaza to the West Bank are the Palestinians themselves.

RONALD O. RICHARDS

Los Angeles