First of all, John, I'm not anti-Israel. The fact that you put that label on me proves that you are working with stereotypes of people who criticize the government of Israel, or in denial about the possibility that a person could be critical of the Israeli government and not be and anti-Israel. I have no problem with Israel existing within the pre-67 borders. It's Israeli expansionism that I have a problem with, and the treatment of Palestinian Israelis within Israel.

Secondly, you are working with incorrect information about the history of Israel. You have bought into the mythos of Israel that is taught to Israelis and those of us here in the US. The people I get my information from, by the way, are Jewish themselves. And many of them are people who are/were prominent Israelis and Israeli government officials. If you did some research of your own instead of buying into the propaganda hype, you would come away from the experience with a whole different perspective than the one you have. That is, unless you refuse to see Palestinians as human beings.

CarolC - With regard to you paragraph 2 above, we fundamentally disagree. Palestineans need not have been displaced from their homes as you put it. In most cases, not all, they chose what they thought was a temporary (until Israel was crushed) situation.

This is entirely incorrect. It is vicious propaganda. It's like saying that the European Jews "chose" to leave their homes in Europe. The displaced Palestinians were fleeing for their lives. They may have thought they would only have to leave temporarily, but they didn't "choose" to leave, unless you consider choosing life over death to be a real choice.

Regarding your mantra of "the unacceptable behavior" of Israel towards Palestineans, Palestinean citizens of Israel were (and are) treated light years better than their brethern under Arab control (perfectly, no; better, yes).

In some cases this is correct, and in some, it is not. But correct or no, if it is wrong, it is wrong, no matter who does it and to what degree. If it is wrong, you can't justify it by saying that someone else is doing it too.

And Palestineans coming under Israeli control after 1967 were also treated better by the Jewish state than by Jordan. Of course Palestineans are now treated as an enemy because there is a 'defacto' war by them against Jewish Israel. Therefore, I cannot believe that you really believe your statement.

Again, in some cases this is correct and in some it is not. And again, if the behavior is wrong, it is wrong, and you can't justify it by saying it's ok because Jordan is doing it too.

Jews had had a presence in the land from Biblical times, through the Crusades, through the Ottomans and through the British mandate. And from the late 19th century, groups as the Zionists, were negotiating for a Jewish homeland where there had always been Jews.

Yes. This is true. And many of those Palestinian Jews are just as pissed off at the Europeans as the Palestinian Muslims and Christians. They all got along just fine until the Europeans showed up. That's when things started turning hateful.

Interestingly, the British offered Herzl (part of) Uganda for a Jewish state; it was not accepted for obvious reasons.

I'm aware of that. And just as interestingly, the British promised the Palestinians a homeland in Palestine.

So one picture has made you anti-Israeli! What about pictures of Pizza Parlors blown up by suicide murderers?! What a piece of work!

I abhore the pictures of Israelis being blown up by suicide bombers. And I blame the government of Israel for their deaths. But I have been seeing those pictures for years, and I have been angry about that for years. What I didn't ever see before was the devastation being wreaked upon the Palestinians by the Israeli government. There have been vastly greater numbers of Palestinians killed by Israelis than the other way around, and the amount of devastation that the Palestinians have experienced at the hands of the Israeli government makes the suicide bombings in pizza parlors look like a picnic. That is, unless you place greater value on the lives of Israeli Jews than you do on the lives of Palestinians.

I was shocked when I saw that man on my television. But I was ignorant of the real situation over there when I saw that. I didn't start getting angry with the government of Israel until I started doing some research, and finding out what's really been going on over there. Again, most of my information comes from Jews, many of them Israelis, and many of those, government officials. If you are Jewish, you should be angry about what the government of Israel is doing in your name.

We recall that it was your claim of *reverse anti-Semitism* that set you off on your crusade.

Hardly, delurker. It was the information I was getting about what the government of Israel is and has been doing to the Palestinians that set me off. Any signs of anger you saw in my posts back then was symptomatic of the shock and outrage I was experiencing as I was in the process of discovering just how thoroughly I had been lied to and misled. I'm not shocked any more. Just angry and deeply saddened.