There are not many columns I have read in the Gazette that were as poetic as Jena Schwartz’s,“Things I have not said” [Gazette, April 24]. It is a time when much is being left unsaid, and as she points out, a time when many want much left unsaid.

Reading it, I wondered if a Palestinian, reading it in her presence, might be able to say, “Yes, I see that. Yes, I understand that. Yes, I live that too.”

The melancholy of her piece, the loneliness and alienation, do seem somewhat self-imposed. An easy state to find yourself in. To be “consumed” by Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 and the subsequent destruction of Gaza as a livable place is one sign of putting yourself in a constant state of fear. Obsession rarely leads to equanimity, nor peace of mind.

But to leave your peace of mind to the spectators — those who do not live there, do not live it every day — is to truly invite fear and isolation.

Yet if we don’t let social media make us hysterical, the real change since Oct. 7 is that people no longer agree that Israel has the unlimited right to occupy and or control any Palestinian territory beyond its original 1967 borders. What is not said nor unsaid in that statement is that Israel’s right to exist is not in danger as a nation state. It is too powerful and has nukes. Period.

The constant drumbeat that Israel’s very existence is threatened, and as such the life of every diaspora Jew, is a call much of the world no longer wants to answer. The absolute equality of Israeli and Palestinian life is now the demand of the world.

How can that be alienating unless one simply does not believe it?

What happened to the Jewish people in the Holocaust no longer serves as a balance to what is happening to Palestinians under Israeli rule.

What Israel and its supporters like Ms. Schwartz must contend with is that Israel has no right to exist “without fear,” as is now often added. No nation state can live without fear — it is in the very nature of a nation state.

And while the celebration of Jewish tradition during Passover is important, as she mentions, she also brings into focus the true essence of the debate: If Israel can exist only as a Jewish state, but not a democratic one, should it?

And must the world accept it?

Joe Gannon lives in Easthampton.