A piece in Haaretz this week about something Israelis and Palestinians have in common If you (or I) were Palestinian

This week I spoke with my students about the Gaza war, in the context of a class on national security. One student, who had expressed rather conservative, accepted opinions - that is opinions tending slightly to the right - succeeded in surprising me. Without any provocation on my part, he opened his heart and confessed: "If I were a young Palestinian," he said, "I'd fight the Jews fiercely, even by means of terror. Anyone who says anything different is telling you lies."

His remarks sounded familiar - I had already heard them before. Suddenly I remembered: About 10 years ago they were uttered by our defense minister, Ehud Barak. Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy had asked him then, as a candidate for prime minister, what he would do had he been born Palestinian and Barak replied frankly: "I would join a terror organization"...

The thing is - it's important that we should understand that though we can rightly repidiate terrorism as a tactic, but we should never assume that "terrorists" are that different from us, or that we have some moral superiority if we have never been in a situation where terrorism seems to make sense.