An affecting account of four years in Israel and Palestine | Letters

Bethan McKernan’s conclusions from her time as the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent moved Alexandra Lucas, who recalls visiting the city in the footsteps of her Palestinian father. Plus, a letter by Chris MatthewsI was so moved by Bethan McKernan’s article on her time as the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent over the last four years (‘I worried I might start finding it normal. But I never did’ – what I learned as the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, 29 May). Her experience of feeling a “maddening cognitive dissonance” in Tel Aviv/Jaffa from seeing people “out and about, doing pilates, walking their dogs, as if everything was fine – when just 50km down the road, on the same stretch of the Med, was an open-air prison” is exactly how I felt when I first visited Jerusalem in 2018 after spending time in the West Bank.I had decided to take my young family there to show them where my Palestinian father grew up under the British Mandate and see if we could find the home he’d lost in 1948. But I was also keen to ensure my children had a balanced view and understood the whole story, educating them about what the Jewish people had been through. Continue reading...