nerd, I can hardly keep up with the ever increasing demands that you are placing on my time. Maybe you can give me an opportunity to respond to your earlier points before you start introducing any new ones.

BTW, I don't know why you think I'm being hostile to others. As far as I can see, most of the hostility on this thread is directed at me. But I'm a big girl, and I'm handling it ok. I don't feel any hostility toward you (except maybe some exasperation at the amount of work you're giving me to do), I don't feel any hostility toward Fred, and I don't even feel any hostility toward Mr. Gibson. I don't feel any hostility towards the govenment of Israel even. A lot of mistrust, but not hostility. It's just that I see an entirely different reality than you do (as far as I can tell from your posts). And the reality I see compels me to respond to certain kinds of things in certain kinds of ways. It's how I am able to live with myself in the midst of a rather insane world.

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have violated people's Human Rights--they have, for example, killed people. I think both you and I have to accept this or we would be in deep denial. So supporters of either side can be "for Human Rights" in general, and can understand or justify the violation of human rights in specific cases. (If not, both sides should just burn in hell and we can stop talking.) So our argument comes down to: which of those cases are justifiable? This is a gray area, not a black-and-white either-or, and I don't feel the need to impugn anyone as a Nazi or cast aspersions on their morality because they see things another way.

This is how I see it. My boyfriend when I was in high school and for a few years after I graduated, was Jewish. His grandmother was a holocaust victim. She had survived imprisonment in a concentration camp. I was living in an area that was quite Jewish, culturally. Most of my friends were Jewish. My mother was a civil rights worker when I was a child. She marched with Martin Luther King. I grew up in environments that were saturated with conscience. 'Conscience' is something that is deeply engrained in my psyche. I don't see that ever changing.

Now, I was taught, very thoroughly, by the Jewish environment in which I was growing up, that we must never allow ourselves to become complicit. And that we must never allow another situation in which people could be made to suffer as the Jews did during the holocaust. The thing that stuns me about discussions like this one, is that it looks to me like some people think "never again" should only apply to Jews. I can't see it that way. To me, "never again" means all human beings. So that is why I cannot be silent while I see Palestinians being treated by the government of Israel in ways that would horrify Jews if they saw other Jews being treated in that way by any government.

I don't feel any hostility towards Jews who are behaving in this way. I feel deep sorrow. Because even though I'm not Jewish, these people feel like my family. And the Palestinians feel like my family, too. And I feel my family being broken apart by these things. And it breaks my heart. And no matter how much it pisses off people for whom the subject of Israel and the Palestinians is a highly charged subject, I cannot be silent, and I will not allow myself to become complicit with my silence.

I'll get to your assertion that Jordan is Palestine fairly soon, but not right away.

Fred, you're welcome to whatever perception of me works for you. And you as well, Martin.