Joe, you did what I usually do, posting the actual article--I have to confess that I didn't do it here on purpose, because I was hoping this thread would quietly vanish--

I belong to a mail group that has spent the last two months discussing this issue, and has been nearly destroyed by the effort--I was hoping to avoid the virtual blood shed here.

I guess it was a bit naive to think that we could sidestep this discussion for the simple reason that the conflict is increasing in intensity on both side, and there is a good reason to believe that there are imminent plans for a military escalation--how could we not talk about it? How can we even set limits on the discussion?

I have great sympathy for both sides--How can we not care about Israel? we were taught to see Israel as the phoenix, sprung from the very real ashes of the Holocaust--but we never discussed the fact that, to create Israel, a whole population was disenfranchised and sent into exile--now we are compelled to discuss it, because they, and their descendents, remain disenfrachised, and in exile--

They idea that a decisive military action is possible is questionable, at best. A larger war would be almost inevitable, and it is unlikely that it would another "Seven Day War"--Iraq would play a central role, since the American embargo is not popular in the Middle East, and an act of war would make it easy for Islamic nations to open the doors to Iraq again--In exchange, the Iraqi rockets would again bombard Israel--

So let the discussion begin, as it will, and as it must--unfortunately, even Kevin McGrath, who is often acts both Mudcat's sage and it's conscience, has no clear bearing on this, and the dark clouds are only beginning to form--