Professor, he who has a powerful army and air force, and total military superiority on the battlefield needs no suicide bombers in order to massacre and terrorize his opponents, nor does he need to hijack airplanes. Instead, he sends his military jets and bombs the hell of someone.

The USA and its Allies lost more people (a handful) to "friendly fire" during the Gulf War than they did to Iraqui fire, while causing the immediate death of at least 200,000 Iraquis with consummate ease, plus the slow death of hundreds of thousands more in the years following. In such a situation, who needs to go after buses or Olympic athletes? Why send people to kill swat a few mosquitoes when you can safely and without personal loss obliterate the entire modern infrastructure of a country from 20,000 feet up?

If you chaps had no effective army or air force, if your people were economically devastated, and huddling powerlessly in refugee camps, then you too would do sneaky things like blowing up buses...I guarantee it. Your courageous fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1944 had to resort to sneak attacks on the Nazis, didn't they? They did not have the luxury of maneuvering in the open with panzer divisions and fleets of bombers. The Germans considered them to be "terrorists", of course...lawless people to be exterminated on sight. The powerful always call the powerless some nasty name like "terrorist".

It is your own unwillingness to admit to Israel's having greatly contributed to the Middle Eastern cycle of violence that you should be ashamed of. Both Israelis and Palestinians are to blame for that. The fact that they both point their fingers eternally at the other party, while excusing their own violent acts, is typical human hypocrisy, no worse in their case than in yours but equally comparable.

You shouldn't be arguing with Carol. You should be arguing with some militant Muslim fanatic whose mind is as closed as yours, and then see whose litany of past grievances is more horrendous and lasts longer. I predict that neither one of you would ever reach the end of it...nor would you reach any degree of understanding regarding the other's point of view or his humanity. And that is why you see fit to kill each other...by whatever means is in your grasp.

By the way, I think your media is biased...just a little. It tells you what it wants you to hear, and no more than that. It's just like that on the Palestinian side of the line too...

If you had been born a Palestinian, you would BE on the other side of that line.

- LH