Yes, Willie....

musicmic - You can make paragraph breaks by hitting the "Enter" key twice. Try it.

While I understand your feelings (given your personal experiences in Israel), I suspect that had you been born a Palestinian or a muslim you would be expressing the same sort of passionate views...only from the diametrically opposite position. Trust me, you would.

I call terrorism terrorism no matter who is doing it, and I believe the Israelis and the Palestinians are both doing it, and have been since the inception of the Jewish state of Israel, in fact even before the inception of the Jewish state...check the historical record of the British administration in Palestine after World War II.

They are both committing terrorist acts "to protect themselves" and "to retaliate" for past terrorist acts and to "send a message" (a stupid and pointless message, namely: "We aren't going to let you push us around! Try it and you will pay dearly!"). Well, duh!...when has that ever ended a festering dispute of this sort?

They are both wrong to do it, IMO, and I regret that there is no world authority either willing to or capable of disarming them both, protecting the civilians on both sides, establishing heavily garrisoned buffer zones between them if necessary, and policing the area for as long as it takes to reach some working and lasting agreements for mutual coexistence and peace.

I have never denied Israel's right to exist, but I deny their right to attack their neighbours, just as I deny their neighbours' right to attack them. That is not anti-semitism! It's neutrality. I accept everyone's right to exist.

And I am well aware that Israeli society has accomplished a number of progressive things, and is better organized socially (and militarily) than the poorer, less modernized Arab nations on its borders.

That doesn't make Israel "good" and the Arabs "evil". Most ordinary people everywhere are good, in my opinion, but they become dangerous when they are fearful or desperate or in the grip of virulent hate propaganda.

Both Israel and its many armed opponents are in the grip of fear, desperation, and virulent hate propaganda on a daily basis...but they only recognize the other guy's hate propaganda for what it truly is. They see their own hate propaganda as the gospel of truth and justice...

Both are walking, blinded by their own mythology, into the fire.

- LH