Reply #23: Just because I don't agree with you, [View All]

doesn't mean that I don't read or that I'm anti-semitic.

My views of the six day war came from a man who was on the ground. An Israeli man...and his sister, who no longer lives there and has no urge to do so. Those views were fleshed out by John Pilger and a UN observer.

My views on the Balfour Declaration came from....surprise.....reading the declaration and the correspondence of Lord Balfour, along with documents from Churchill.

I know the origins of Zionism, the origins of Israel, and some of the realities "on the ground," a phrase that came from the Zionist leadership of Israel. I understand how the Israelis have taken over large parts of Palestine, and how the checkpoints remain even if the settlers don't...and how the settlers are supported by the government, and the government gets a great deal of money for those things from the US. I understand that the violence perpetrated by the Palestinians kills Israeli civilians. I also understand that the Israeli army kills dozens of innocent civilians for every civilian killed by rockets and suicide bombers. I understand that suicide bombings are the weapons of the Palestinians, simply because they are unable to earn a living....I also understand that the habit of absurd retaliation isn't working and won't work.

Because my people wrote a work of fiction that "gave" them an inhabited land that they couldn't keep, doesn't mean that I believe that they have the right, 2000 years later, to come back and remove the inhabitants by violence and stealth. Enough, already.