Bobad, since biblical times, Palestine has been multi-ethnic. No one ethnic group can lay complete claim to it. Therefore, they have to learn to live together.

Greg_F, I generally do my best to ignore what you have to say, since so much of it is false and unfounded.

And yes, Greg, as I said before, I REALLY read what UNHCR and AFSC and Amnesty International say about what happens in Palestine, and I believe those reports and do not discount them.

However, there is another side to the story of Palestine, facts that do not get as much publicity. The Palestinians are not just wallowing in self-pity, waiting for you to ride in on your white horse to rescue them (if you ever get to Palestine). They are building a nation and show great signs of advancement. I saw Jericho in 1999, and I saw it in 2017. The improvement is dramatic. The same thing applies to both East and West Jerusalem - they have improved greatly since I last saw them in 1999.

Why is it that you and Jim Carroll are so offended when I say that the Palestinians are doing good things? I certainly acknowledge that there is a vast need for improvement in Palestine and in most of the Arab world, but there is also much good in those places. And Palestinians in particular have a right to be proud of their country.

I suppose it's the same with how offended you are when I say anything good about the Catholic Church, although I certainly acknowledge the bad.

You, Greg, and Jim Carroll have some sort of mental limitation that allows you to think only in absolutes. You have a very black-and-white, moralizing point of view. But that's not real life. Real life includes both the good and the bad.

And another mistake you make, is to think that politics is the be-all and end-all of everything. In most of daily life for most people, politics is far in the background. It's not politics that made Israel a beautiful place - it's the individual work of individual people, both Arabs and Jews. Politics is indeed important, but it has a limited effect on the daily lives of most people.

You put all your emphasis on what leaders do, and that's a mistake. Real life does not happen in the midst of the elite. It happens in families and neighborhoods and workplaces. For the most part, the elite are irrelevant to the rest of us.

-Joe Offer-