I'm Irish-American, so I'm an expert at digging up stuff that's 50 generations old. A mere 5 generations is only the day before yesterday.

My point, however, is not to fix blame, but to understand the current situation. That's why we study history. And whenever I search the historical record, it becomes clear that the first organized and sustained violence were the Arab attacks against Jews throughout Palestine during August 1929.

And yes, I have heard of al-Nakba, which is Arabic for the Catastrophe, meaning the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the events that followed. The irony is that the Catastrophe, including the Israeli annexation of certain lands allocated to the Arab State of Palestine under the 1947 UN Partition Plan, came about in great part because the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and the Trans-Jordan invaded Israel on its first day of existence.

Once again, none of this justifies Israel's current policy of brutality, but it helps us understand its origins.