The question in the Middle East is and has always been the legitimacy of the Jewish state. The war which began in 1948 was fought over this issue and this issue, only. If those erudites whose opinions have been fouling up this thread with misinformation, had bothered to check the history of this war, they would have uncovered that little tidbit on their own. The Moslem religious right understands this and has steadfastly refused to accept the state of Israel under any circumstances. They are no more interested in Palestinian rights than George Bush is about health care. There was no talk about Palestinian rights or a Palestinian state when that region was controled by Turkey, or by absentee Egyptian and Syrian landlords. I am bringing these points up to suggest that the corespondants to this thread are either uninformed or biased. If I have assumed the latter, I assure you that I would prefer to be mistaken. It is just that the history of this conflict is so recent that I thought everyone knew about it.
I might have a more tolerant view of the motives of these corespondants if I found an equal number of threads condemning terrorist attacks directed specificly at civilians, bombs at bus terminals, skyjackings, school bombings. I am not blind to the anti-Israeli bias in this thread. If there are Jews among the corespondants, they should recognize their vulnerability. We are a funny race. Sometimes we become assimilated enough to think that our ethnic identity is no more cogent than the color of our hair. We maintain just enough tradition to please our parents or the memory of our parents. Yet, within those traditions, is a seed of unity, a sense of family, as it were. Last week, I attended a Passover seder at the home of a very modern and very American and very anti-war friend. There was lots of responsive reading from the hagadah, most of which was as passed over as the Malech Hamovis (Angel of Death) avoiding the bloodstained doors of the Jews in bondage. The irony of this seder was when the story of the four sons is told, the "wicked" son is so called because he detaches himself from his ancestors in bondage. He thinks of himself as being above the tribulations and dangers that befall his family. For, as the story suggests, all of us are who we are and who we were and where we come from.
I am a Jew by birth. I am an American by birth and by choice. I am an Israeli by liniage and history. I am old enough to remember WW2 and the concentration camps. I have lived in a world that ignored the plight of the Jews until their oppressors became a threat to the Christian world. I understand, all too well, why there is a need for a Jewish state.
I also understand the history and psychology of anti-semitism. It is as rooted in western culture as White supremecy. (No white, including me, is immune to anti-Black racism. It is a cultural legacy. It can only be combatted by awareness. Similarly, no Christian can escape the reality of the anti-Jewish bias. It is rooted in deicide and reinforced by centuries of segregation and distrust.)
Well, I'm done. I leave you with a sincere wish for shalom.