In Ronit Nudelman Perl’s July 29 column on Israel, she writes: “No child, of any nationality, should have to become comfortable with constant threats of harm.”

Did she include Palestinians in this statement? It certainly is not evident, for she focuses on the rockets falling from Gaza. There is no acknowledgment that her country bears any responsibility for squeezing the Palestinians into a prison on the West Bank with a wall, illegal settlements and a blockade of Gaza, which has made most Palestinian lives unbearable.

Perl relates how the new group of military recruits learned about sacrifice to their country and the importance of precision and virtue. Are the unrelenting attacks on Gaza – the killing of families who have sought refuge in a U.N. school, the attack on Gaza’s only power plant – examples of “virtue and precision”? Perl will undoubtedly counter with the tunnels built by Hamas as the “primary” objective of the military operation. But do the Palestinians not have a right to defend their rights in whatever means available to them?

She notes that Palestinian children are the Palestinians’ future and that as “every day the conflict continues, the risk of losing them grows.” She urges that the crisis come to an immediate and unconditional end.” Agreed.

To that end, perhaps she would agree to an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza to allow Palestinians to live the normal life enjoyed by Israelis since 1948 at the considerable expense of the Palestinians.

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