By the way, I didn't really know much about the situation in the Middle East until March of 2002. For my whole life I just accepted whatever I was told about it by my government and by my friends who had an interest in the region. And because of that, I bought into the stereotypes about Palestinians and Arabs that are ingrained in the culture of the area in which I grew up, which, as you noticed, was as Jewish as it was anything else, and I asked no questions.

In March of 2002, all of that changed for me. I lost my innocence about Israel/Palestine when I saw, on my television, a Palestinian man, sitting on the floor in his livingroom next to the decaying bodies of his sister and her husband. They had been killed by Israeli soldiers and they had been lying there for two or three days. They were beginning to subside into shapeless masses right there on the man's livingroom floor. He couldn't leave his apartment because Israeli snipers were randomly shooting at people in the streets of the city in which this man lived. I also saw women and old men being shot at by snipers in the streets of this city.

As long as I live, I will never forget the look on that man's face as he sat, bewildered and scared, on his livingroom floor next to the decomposing bodies of his sister and brother-in-law. My stomach twists itself into knots every time I even think about it. I will not be silent while my tax dollars are paying for these crimes.