From robomatic -

Regarding both your comments. Thank you. I'm suggesting that if Israel is going to have to accept reality, so are the Jordanians and those calling themselves Palestinians.

What "reality" are you suggesting Israel is going to accept?

I have a book prepared by an Israeli covering several of the local wars. In its preface is the statement: The wars between the Arabs and the Jews are not a matter of right against wrong, they are a matter of right against right.

There are times when fairness is beyond us. The next best thing is to balance the unfairness with a minimum of overall suffering.

I agree with this. Time to end the occupation. That will be a good start.

From Nerd -

The very fact that you talk about "the way native Americans view justice" and "the way Native Americans conduct business" shows that you are dealing in stereotypes, not reality. Some Native Americans will be scrupulously fair, some will not. Many view white people with suspicion, some with hostility. The idea that the entire system of government and the ownership of all the land in the country could switch hands at once without your life being affected is pretty crazy. You may be self-employed, but presumably you need a system of laws within which to do business, and that would all change overnight.

I don't think I have given you enough information for you to be able to say I am stereotyping. I have not said that Native Americans are paragons of virtue and that they are all the same. But the underlying philosophies that most of their traditions are based on is not the same as that of the Europeans who have spread empire around the world. That is why the Europeans have been so successful in wiping out so many peoples around the world, and subjugating so many others.

One thing that can be said about the traditions of pretty much all of the indegenous peoples of North America... they are based on the concept of all of nature being their relatives. Just like your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. To them, the earth and all of the things found in it (including weather phenomena) are their own flesh and blood. And for that reason, their tradition is diametrically the opposite of that of the Europeans who came here with the philosophy that land that hasn't been conquered isn't productive. And of course, that makes me their relative as well. I can live with that. That is a philosophy I feel much more at home with than the philosophy of those who hold power now.

It may surprise you to know that I do not really have a people I consider to be my own. My ethnic heritage is too mixed up to mean much of anything to me. My spiritual philosophy is unique to me, and so I am a complete minority of one, wherever I go, and whomever I am with. And for a number of different reasons, even though I fit many of the criteria of groups who have been the dominent ones, I have never had the experience of really being a part of any of them. So for me, all of humanity will have to serve as my people. It's all I've got.