This land was whose?

I’m a 90-year old-woman of Jewish extraction. I remember 1948, when the British told the world they were creating Israel. But unlike the former treasurer Josh Frydenberg (Comment, 21/10), I ask myself was it their land to give, and what happened to the people of that land? Were Palestinians who had lived there for centuries asked could their land be given away?

Marion Harper, Reservoir

Reign of madness

How did we get here? When a group of people murder civilians, especially babies, there is no excuse, prevarication or ‘‘provocation’’, nor is it ‘‘resistance’’. I say this as a proud Australian Jew supportive of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination alongside Israel’s continued existence. I say this as someone who is not a starry-eyed ideologue or as someone who does not consider himself better than anyone else because of my ‘‘tribe’’.

I say this as someone aware of the historical complexity of the Middle East, as someone with friends of all ethnicities, as someone grieving the loss of life in Gaza currently. I say this as someone whose extended family was decimated during the Holocaust, and who never expected to see chants of ‘‘gas the Jews’’ in my own city.

How did educated, intelligent people with huge followings, activists and academics alike, who claim to be supporters of human rights, especially the rights of women and children, decide to respond to the worst day for Jewish women and children since the Holocaust with varying versions of ‘‘it’s terrible but…?’’ I ask, Have people lost their minds?

Simon Tedeschi, Newtown, NSW