Jim Carroll says: You carefully avoid commenting on the way Palestinians, and Bedouins are gradually being driven out of land they have occupied for millennia in order to create a 'pure' Jewish nation - millions of decent Jews, holocaust survivors and their families, American groups like 'Jews for Justice', 'Rabbis for Justice', Jewish humanists, intellectuals are protesting, taking to the streets and writing about the atrocities that are taking place there - teh ghettos, the Berlin-type Wall, the ten year blockage in order to force Palestinians into submission to the persecution, the evictions and the illegal settlements
Palestinians make up the single largest (7.2 million) and longest established national group of refugees driven from their home and refused the right to return on this planet at the present time
And you describe our opposition to this as "bigoted animosity"
You should be ashamed of yourself
Try a little humanity and soul-searching
Jim Carroll

Can't say I know enough about the Bedouins to comment, Jim; and I don't know of any significant removal of Palestinians. I only reported what I saw - and I did see that the Palestinian State is making good progress, although it has a long way to go. I'm wondering if those corrougated metal shacks I saw on the Jericho Road were Bedouins. That was the worst housing that I saw, but I did not see much of it.

You won't like hearing me say this, but I wonder if the Wall had an unexpected side effect - it seems to me that the Wall may have solidified the resolve of Palestinians to build their own nation.

Way up at the top of this thread, I did speak of the Jewish settlements and what I thought of them. I expected to see a few small outposts here and there, but not the case. These settlements are huge and ostentatiously lavish in appearance, and there is a great number of them, and they are protected by military force. I neglected to say that I read that in the building of some of the settlements, the Israelis bulldozed some homes where Palestinians had lived for fifty years. That's not something that I observed myself, but I read that and I believe it.

Ok, I suppose I have to admit that I "carefully avoid commenting on the way Palestinians, and Bedouins are gradually being driven out of land." I tried to report only what I had observed myself, the good and the bad - and I think I did that fairly. But go and visit Arab towns like Bethlehem and Nazareth and Bethany and Jericho and East Jerusalem. I think you'll be impressed - and I think that's proof that Palestinians deserve to have a nation of their own. I don't know why you find that opinion to be offensive.

You dismiss me as "only a tourist," but I am a seasoned world traveler and I think a pretty good observer. I make a point of walking cities by myself and taking public transportation and stopping to talk with people. I go off by myself because I don't like being in an "American bubble." If I'm alone, people are more likely to talk.

Go to Palestine, Jim. I think you'll like it.

And Beardedbruce, I am intentionally ignoring what you say about what anyone did in 1948. I know that people like you and Jim Carroll work very hard to keep 70-year-old grudges alive, but I think those grudges are irrelevant. The ideologues work hard to keep that animosity alive, because it keeps them in power. I'll stick with those who are working to resolve the issues, not prolong them.

Go to Palestine, Bruce. I think you'll like it.

Don't go to Palestine, Greg. You'll just end up getting arrested - by the Palestinian authorities.

-Joe Offer-