I do not know Palestinian men keeping women under Sharia law

I take grave objection to the description of the Palestinian people put forward by Desmond Fitzgerald (Letters, October 2).

Yes, there are women living under a variant of Sharia law in polarised and besieged Gaza. Otherwise, I do not know what Palestinian men are keeping women under Sharia law. I have not met any of them in over 30 years of living among Palestinians, so perhaps Mr Fitzgerald is not speaking about Haifa, Nazareth, Wadi Ara, Saknin, Ramallah, Jerusalem, Beit Jala, Jericho, Bethlehem, Akko, etc?

Interestingly, he made no reference to the Jewish women living under Jewish law in parts of Israel which is a really serious issue.

Neither do I know what Mr Fitzgerald is referring to when claiming that Palestinians are not willing to live with Jews, because there are over 1 million of them living with Jews inside Israel. As a Jewish family, the Palestinian people we know have no issue with us living with them. Indeed, we have been offered many times to build a home in a Palestinian area of Israel, in the Galilee, for instance, as have other friends of ours, so I do not know where he got this belief from.

My understanding of Palestine is certainly not from the armchair or built on ‘factual falsehoods’. It comes from actual experience.

Mr Fitzgerald should refrain from making sweeping claims and check his own ‘facts’.

Sylvia Joyce-Shalev Phra Khanong

Bangkok

Thailand