To the Editor:

Re “West Bank Shopping Center, a Symbol of Coexistence, Is Shaken by Violence” (Gush Etzion Junction Journal, Dec. 15):

Portraying Israeli settlements and their businesses as hubs of coexistence is absurd. The settlements have always been primary obstacles to peace in international political forums, and major impediments to Palestinian economic growth. In fact, Israeli settlements stifle Palestine’s economy, according to Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.

Moreover, portraying settler leaders as champions of coexistence and peace is preposterous, considering that those settlers live in illegal settlements built on occupied Palestinian land.

The charge of absurdity is further bolstered, considering that in the last decade, more than 11,000 attacks against Palestinians were perpetrated by Israeli settlers. In 2015, with more than 861 attacks so far, the most horrifying was the arson attack that killed three members of the Dawabsheh family: Ali (18 months old), along with his mother and father.

The Israeli occupation has deprived us Palestinians of our most basic human rights and of our national right to self-determination. Furthermore, this longstanding, brutally oppressive occupation has enforced a social structure of discrimination privileging the occupier over the occupied.