Well this is about as much vile crap as I've seen around here in a long time. As it happens, I personally know many Middle Eastern people from many countries including Palestine. I also know and admire many Jewish people, mostly from Europe but also from the middle east and even the western hemisphere. I can tell you first hand that they are all wonderful, caring people and equally deserving of a chance to live their lives in peace and prosperity. The callenge for Israelis and Palestinians and the rest of us all watching them self-destruct, is to forget about righting all the historical wrongs, both real and imagined, and help them find a way to live peacefully—together or apart—in the same general part of the world. I realize it will be many generations before these people can reach out to each other in friendship but there must be a beginning and it can't be based solely on military might.

I'm definately not the one with theanswer to the present troubles. I do think it's important to note that not all Palestinians are violent people and not all Jews are Zionists. One's faith can be a beautiful thing and the middle east is rich in many faiths, but I'm pretty sure that any time you're pushing someone else around because God wants you to or because God has told you you're better than they are, or God has given you someone else's land, you've lost your faith somewhere along the line.

Moments in history can be spun to favor any point of view one may wish to espouse. Often what is actually true matters less than what people have come to believe is true.

• According to the Old Testament, Jerusalem—named for the title of it's founder Melchizedek, King of Peace(Salem-Shalom)—was widely known as "The Holy City" long before Abraham and the hebrew people showed up on their way from Ur. In fact Abraham, having just defeated the armies of the northern kings, gave Melchizedek one tenth of the spoils he had taken and promised never to take the city of Jerusalem.
• It's very difficult for Americans and even Europeans to appreciate the time scale involved in the relations between peoples of the middle east. Great cities in the middle east and ranging through Iraq and clear up to the Caucasus had been built and rebuilt while Europeans were still tribal societies living in caves. These peoples and their traditions are very, very old indeed.
• Since Mudcat is in some sense about tradition, it's interesting to note that the people of present day Lebanon count themselves as descendents of the Canaanites and the Palestinians as descendents of the Amalekites. You'll recall that about the first thing the children of Israel did after crossing the Red Sea was to have a big war with the Amalekites, a nomadic shepherd people also known for their skill in battle.
• It's interesting to note—though no longer meaningful in the present conflict—that the waves of Zionists that began migrating to Palestine a hundred and twenty years ago came as illegal immigrants.
• Over the known history of the region of Palestine, there has been a Jewish state there, in one form or another for maybe three or four hundred years tops.

These points aren't offered to try to establish right and wrong, these concepts seem to have no application in the middle east. I offer them only as examples of interesting traditions and “facts” which, no mater how heartily endorsed and by whom, will not serve to help resolve today's mess.

For those seeking a strictly factual history of the region without editorial embellishment, I refer you to some remarkably concise histories on the Net. They don't include every detail surrounding each event but they do provide a mention of each event along with it's result or effect upon the region. One resource is the Chronology of Palestinian History on Palestine-Net and another is this Outline of Palestinian History found on Arab.net. Each of these summaries seems merely to catalog varifiable events without introducing opinion concerning the events themselves nor the motives of the people involved. A more detailed discussion of Palestine during the Roman period may be found at the University of South Dakota's On-line Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces.

I don't believe any of us can add to a settlement of hostilities in the middle east directly, certainly not by parroting the goals and prejudices of one side or another here in these discussions. Perhaps the most effective thing we can do is to pray for all the people of the middle east and for some wisdom to be imparted to our leaders and those of the warring peoples.

      - Mark