My response to Congirl - "Being Real About the Mid-East"

You seem to pull specific incidents and events into an argument that then indicts the nation.

I think it best now to respond specifically to your specific comments, although my view is far broader than any single incident. First, although single incidents that involve the deaths of people are terrible things, my opinions and beliefs are couched in a longer view of both history and future.

Let’s start with human shields.

Rachel Corrie (you misspelled her name) was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The ISM is a Palestinian-run organization that lures its members into war zones to act as human shields in obstructing counter-terrorism efforts. It was started by Adam Shapiro, who was fired from his job as a counselor for Seeds of Peace because of his extremist views against the Jewish teens who participated in the program. He admits to being sympathetic to the Palestinian groups who are terrorizing Israelis through suicide bombings and indiscriminate mortar fire into Israel. He and several Palestinians started ISM to bring in outsiders to use as shields, because, as he said in an interview back in 2002, it brings more press when an American or a British citizen is involved instead of an Arab.

The ISM describes itself as a peaceful humanitarian group, but in reality it is sympathetic to terrorist tactics and lures well-intentioned, idealistic young adults to the Palestinian Territories to promote its anti-Israel views. The ISM then knowingly leads its members into war zones, placing them directly in harm's way as human shields in an attempt to obstruct Israel's counterterrorism operations.

On March 16, 2003, Rachel, acting as a human shield, attempted to deter bulldozers clearing brush and earth around homes in Rafah. According to a witness, Rachel slipped as she moved in front of the bulldozer, fell in front of the slow moving blade and was crushed by unearthed debris. An investigation, which included extensive interrogation of the driver and his commanders, using polygraphs and video evidence, revealed that the driver's view had been obstructed by the debris and by the bulldozer’s protective driver cage. An independent autopsy confirmed that the bulldozer had not touched Rachel.

You argue that the press rarely reports when bad things happen to Palestinians. This is not the case. When you use the word “International” I expect you are describing the Rachel Corries of the world. You are mistaken to believe that the international press is not present. The Gaza war was the first time that the press was held back officially by the Israeli government.

The Israeli press is constantly reporting on attacks by settlers and others in the West Bank. “Israeli settlers burn olive trees.” “Israeli settlers attack Arabs” who live in towns and villages next to the settlement. These incidents are reported on with increasing frequency in both the world press and in Israel. The government doesn’t condone this and prosecutes those found in violation of law. It happens, and it is unfortunate that it does happen, but it is not the policy of the Israeli government to terrorize other people.

You said that the Israeli army is not allowed to fire live rounds at those ‘internationals’ but “Palestinians are fair game.” Well, there are rules of engagement, but they do not separate out Palestinians from others. They set out the rules based on the behavior of people and whether the soldier perceives a threat. The IDF has concluded that some commanders in Gaza were lax in monitoring those rules. This happens in war; what is astonishing is that Israel is internally investigating this. I’d challenge you or anyone else to find one single example of an Arab nation conducting an investigation into its soldiers’ behaviors. Also understand a clear difference in the behaviors of an army and terrorists. Israeli soldiers wear uniforms. Israeli policemen and Israeli border guards wear uniforms. Arab terrorists, suicide bombers, and many militia members (Al-Aska Brigade, Hamas militia, etc.) do not. At best, they walk around wearing black head coverings so people can’t identify them. At worst, and this has been documented time after time, they hide in mosques, school buildings, private homes, hospitals. They use your precious “internationals” as shields as they fire at uniformed troops. I’ll throw the UN in here as well; there are many documented instances of Hezbollah fighters stationing a mortar firing gang next to UN facilities in southern Lebanon. How do we know they are Hezbollah? The UN had identified them as such (amazing, huh?).

Let’s see if Hamas or the Palestinian Authority will agree to investigate whether paid members of Hamas or the PA are involved in the indiscriminate mortar fire into Israel, or whether any members of their organizations are involved in the training of and sending out of suicide bombers, who indiscriminately murder innocents. Let’s see if those “internationals” you describe are willing to stand in front of a suicide bomber dispatched by the PA or Hamas and absorb the blast. Let’s see if any of your precious “internationals” are willing to stand in the streets of Sderot as the sirens go off to demonstrate against the barbarity of indiscriminate killings.

Now let’s turn to your use of nationalism turning poisonous to kill people. Here’s a few more challenges; drive into Nablus, or Jenin, or Ramallah in a car with Israeli plates. See how long it takes before you are set upon by a mob intent on your murder. Israeli troops do not enter these cities. The Palestinian Authority governs them. Indeed, these cities are surrounded by Israel, but should a self-governing entity see it as completely appropriate to condone the murder of citizens of that other entity? Where is the outrage? You certainly didn’t find it horrible enough to mention.

Now, take a trip in the same car into Gaza. I doubt you’d survive. Is this the behavior of a democracy? Jews are less than them. In the schools in the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Iran, and other Arab nations books and lessons do not even acknowledge Israel’s existence. The schools teach that the Jews were responsible for World War Two, the World Trade Center destruction, and the economic collapse, among other things. Summer camps in Syria, the West Bank and on the beaches in Gaza put young teens through para-military training exercises that include shooting at mannequins that look like Israelis (not just soldiers, but Rabbis, students, farmers). They are taught songs that extol the actions of the martyrs and encourage them to become “shaheeds” as well.

Let me take a few moments to go over a few words and phrases used in your argument.

“Disproportionate response”
You didn’t overtly use this term, but it is intimated by your description of casualty figures, the military response, the building of a security barrier, etc.

Let me be blunt in illustrating the meaninglessness of such a debate by describing what “proportionate” might look like. Would it be best if Israel were to manufacture a thousand or so wildly inaccurate missiles and then fire them off in the general direction of Gaza City? There is a chance, though, that since Gaza is more densely packed than Israel, casualties might be much the same as they are now, so although the ordnance would be proportionate, the deaths would not. Of course, if one of Gaza's rockets did manage to hit an Israeli nursery school at the wrong time (or the right time, depending upon how you look at it), then the proportionality issue would be solved in one explosion. Would you be happy then?

Now, about the “blah blah blah rhetoric” about using force against the terror network causing discomfort about a government killing people becoming poisonous in regard to nationalism.

Is it poisonous to react to a threat to your existence?
Is it poisonous to react to constant and consistent attacks on your sovereign lands?
Would any nation use force, even deadly force, against forces that repeatedly use terror tactics in an effort to destroy your nation? Remember, it is no secret that Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Hezbollah, Al-Aska, Iran, and others want Israel destroyed. They proudly proclaim it. It is on their flags, their maps, in their school’s books, their summer camps, their official Charters.

The poison is in the leadership of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Imams in Iran, the terrorist leaders in Syria, Lebanon; the poison is in the governmentally sanctioned educational curriculum that equates the Jewish people with pigs and dehumanizes Israelis.

Nations respond to threats to their existence, indeed, nations band together to help each other repel those threats, hence the United Nations, NATO, etc. The Allied powers during World War Two defeated Germany because they, together acting in concert, responded to threats to world peace. Do you disagree that Israel has the right to defend itself against aggressors? Do you believe that Israel should not respond to existential threats? The threats posed by Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah and the terrorist groups in the West Bank and Gaza have as their goal the destruction of Israel. They say so publicly and proudly. The Hamas Charter proclaims it as their national goal. Do you not think that is poisonous? Why do you insist on pointing out some specific incidents and events that happen in Israel as poisonous but completely ignore the larger poison?

“Palestinian Land” and your phrase “pre-67 green line”

However you may define the land mass that is occupied by Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, I will try here to educate you in what I believe to be a more accurate view of that little slice of the world.

The general impression given in the media is that Palestinians have lived in the land we now call Israel for hundreds, if not thousands of years. No wonder, then, that a recent poll of French citizens shows that the majority believe (falsely) that prior to the establishment of the State of Israel an independent Arab state existed in its place. Yet curiously, when it comes to giving the history of this "ancient" people most news outlets find it harder to go back more than the early nineteen hundreds. CNN, an agency which has devoted countless hours of airtime to the "plight" of the Palestinians, has a website which features a special section on the Middle East conflict called "Struggle For Peace". It includes a promising sounding section entitled "Lands Through The Ages" which assures us it will detail the history of the region using maps. Strangely, it turns out, the maps displayed start no earlier than the ancient date of 1917. The CBS News website has a background section called "A Struggle For Middle East Peace.'' Its history timeline starts no earlier than 1897. The NBC News background section called ''Searching for Peace'' has a timeline that starts in 1916. BBC's timeline starts in 1948.

Yet, the clincher must certainly be the Palestinian National Authority's own website. While it is top heavy on such phrases as "Israeli occupation" and "Israeli human rights violations" the site offers practically nothing on the history of the so-called Palestinian people. The only article on the site with any historical content is called "Palestinian History - 20th Century Milestones" which seems only to confirm that prior to 1900 there was no such concept as the Palestinian People.

While the modern media maybe short on information about the history of the "Palestinian people" the historical record is not. Books, such as Battleground by Samuel Katz and From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters long ago detailed the history of the region. Far from being settled by “Palestinians” for hundreds, if not thousands of years, the place we call Israel, according to dozens of visitors to the land, was, until the beginning of the last century, practically empty. Alphonse de Lamartine visited the land in 1835; wrote in his book, Recollections of the East, writes "Outside the gates of Jerusalem we saw no living object, heard no living sound."

American author Mark Twain, who visited the Holy Land in 1867, confirms this. In his book Innocents Abroad he writes, "A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tabor safely. We never saw a human being on the whole journey." Even the British Consul in Palestine reported, in 1857, "The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population."

In fact, according to official Ottoman Turk census figures of 1882, in the entire "Land of Israel" ("Palestine" on both sides of the Jordan River... including what is now Jordan), there were only 141,000 Muslims, both Arab and non-Arab. This number was to skyrocket to 650,000 Arabs by 1922, a 450% increase in only 40 years. By 1938 that number would become over 1 million or an 800% increase in only 56 years. Population growth was especially high in areas where Jews lived. Where did all these Arabs come from? According to the Arabs the huge increase in their numbers was due to natural childbirth. In 1944, for example, they alleged that the natural increase (births minus deaths) of Arabs in the Land of Israel was the astounding figure of 334 per 1000. That would make it roughly three times the corresponding rate for the same year of Lebanon and Syria and almost four times that of Egypt, considered amongst the highest in the world. Unlikely, to say the least. If the massive increase was not due to natural births, then were did all these Arabs come from?

All the evidence points to the neighboring Arab states of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. In 1922 the British Governor of the Sinai noted "illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria." In 1930, the British Mandate sponsored Hope-Simpson Report noted that "unemployment lists are being swollen by immigrants from Trans-Jordania" and "illicit immigration through Syria and across the northern frontier of Palestine is material." The Arabs themselves bare witness to this trend. For example, the governor of the Syrian district of Hauran, Tewfik Bey el Hurani, admitted in 1934 that in a single period of only a few months over 30,000 Syrians from Hauran had moved to the Land of Israel. Even British Prime Minister Winston Churchill noted the Arab influx. Churchill, a veteran of the early years of the British mandate in the Land of Israel, noted in 1939 "far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied."

Far from displacing the Arabs, as they claimed, the Jews were the very reason the Arabs chose to move to the Land of Israel. Jobs provided by newly established Zionist industry and agriculture lured them there, just as Israeli construction and industry provides most Arabs in the Land of Israel with their main source of income today. Malcolm MacDonald, one of the principal authors of the British White Paper of 1939, which restricted Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel, admitted (conservatively) that were it not for a Jewish presence the Arab population would have been little more than half of what it actually was.

Not only pre-state Arabs lied about being indigenous. Even today, many prominent so-called Palestinians, it turns out, are foreign born. Edward Said, an Ivy League Professor of Literature and a major Palestinian propagandist, long claimed to have been raised in Jerusalem. However, in an article in the September 1999 issue of Commentary Magazine Justus Reid Weiner revealed that Said actually grew up in Cairo, Egypt, a fact which Said himself was later forced to admit.

But why bother with only Said? The late PLO chief Yasser Arafat, self-appointed "leader of the Palestinian people,” always claimed to have been born and raised in "Palestine." In fact, according to his official biographer Richard Hart, as well as the BBC, Arafat was born in Cairo on August 24, 1929 and that's where he grew up.

To maintain the charade of being an indigenous population, Arab propagandists have had to do more than a little rewriting of history. A major part of this rewriting involves the renaming of geography. For two thousand years the central mountainous region of Israel was known as Judea and Samaria, as any medieval map of the area testifies. However, the state of Jordan occupied the area in 1948 and renamed it the West Bank. This is a funny name for a region that actually lies in the eastern portion of the land and can only be called "West" in reference to Jordan. This does not seem to bother the majority of news outlets covering the region, which universally refer to the region by its recent Jordanian name.

The term "Palestinian" is itself a masterful twisting of history. To portray themselves as indigenous, Arab settlers adopted the name of an ancient Canaanite tribe, the Philistines, that died out almost 3000 years ago. The connection between this tribe and modern day Arabs is nil. Who is to know the difference? Given the absence of any historical record, one can understand why Yasser Arafat claims that Jesus Christ, a Jewish carpenter from the Galilee, was a Palestinian. Every year, at Christmas time, Arafat goes to Bethlehem and tells worshippers that Jesus was in fact "the first Palestinian".

If the Palestinians are indeed a myth, then the real question becomes "Why?" Why invent a fictitious people? The answer is that the myth of the Palestinian People serves as the justification for a future Arab/"Palestinian" occupation of the current Land of Israel.

On to the border issue.
First of all, the “green line” you reference is an imaginary demarcation first titled such in 1949 as the cease fire lines at the end of the war that resulted in the State of Israel and a continuing state of war between Israel and Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. Prior to that, the landmass that constituted all those countries was in the hands of the British and the French, having wrested it from the Ottoman Empire some 30 years earlier. As you just learned earlier (above), the population centers of this landmass in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s were a mix of European Jewish Zionists, Jews who had been living on the land for generations, Christian and Muslim Arabs, some of whom had been there for years and others who were more transient (Bedouin, Druze, etc.). The story is that the military commanders at the time, during the General Armistice Agreement talks in 1949, used a green pen on a map to describe the lines of cease-fire.

I’ll take a moment here to discuss the population shifts in these lands during the years leading up to the war in 1948 and the eventual declaration of the State of Israel. Zionist pioneers from middle of the 19th century onward began their work of rebuilding a Jewish homeland in what was then the Ottoman or Turkish Empire by their purchase of land from the Turkish Crown and from Arab landowners (Effendi). There was no invasion, no conquest, no theft of Arab land and certainly not of Palestinians who were subjects of Turkish rule (remember, ‘Palestinians’ at that time in history were Arabs and Jews). Unarmed and with no military, the Jews bought so much land that in 1892 a group of Effendi (the word used to describe the tribal leaders in the Arab nations) sent a letter to the Turkish Sultan, requesting that he make it illegal for his subjects to sell land to Jews.

No one complained of theft because there was none. No Arabs were driven from their homes. In fact, as a demographic study published by Columbia University demonstrates, the Arab population of the area grew tremendously during this period in part because of the economic development that the Jews helped to generate. Thus, between 1514 AD and c. 1850, the Arab population of this region of the Turkish Empire was more or less static at about 340,000.

The first Jewish influx into Palestine occurred between 1882 and 1903 and totaled about 25,000. The second, between 1904 and 1914, brought in around 35,000 immigrants, which resulted in a total Jewish population of 85,000. The third wave between 1919 and 1923 brought another 85,000 immigrants, mostly Polish and middle class. The December 1931 British census of the country showed that of the 1.04 million people, 84 percent were Arab and 16 percent were Jewish. While the increase in the Jewish population was due largely to in-migration, the Palestinian population increased naturally at 2.7 percent per year. Because of the rise of Nazism, 174,000 Jews migrated to Palestine between 1932 and 1936. Suddenly the Jewish population in Palestine rose to an estimated 28 percent of the total inhabitants.

As to the words “borders” and “illegal territory” and “property” you used, let’s start with the 1949 cease-fire agreement, sometimes referred to as the Armistice Agreement. In the Armistice Agreement, the cease-fire lines are defined as follows:
* 5(2). In no sense are the cease-fire lines to be interpreted as political or territorial borders and their delineation in no way affects the rights, demands or positions of any of the parties to the cease-fire agreements regarding final disposition.
* 5(3). The fundamental objective of the cease-fire lines is to serve as a line beyond which the armed forces of each of the parties will deploy.

Thus Israel has no "safe and recognized" borders under these agreements, and the cease-fire lines, as agreements signed in Rhodes in 1949 make clear, are unacceptable to the Arab countries. The November 1947 borders specified in the UN partition plan could have been the borders, but those borders were rejected by the Arab Nations at the time, and were not acceptable to Israel later since they proved indefensible against armies and porous to terrorists.

So, borders are to be determined as part of some future negotiations. Israel makes do with a cease-fire line as its temporary borders. Anything constructed on or near the cease-fire lines, such as a barrier/fence to keep terrorists away from Israeli population canters is also a temporary solution until a final status of borderlines is determined. The fence/barrier along the Gaza strip’s “border” has been successful since it went up over 30 years ago. It too is considered temporary; if such a peace exists that allows for good relations, commerce, travel, etc., between the residents of Gaza and Israel, the fence will come down. Israel and Egypt determined final border status on the Sinai property and no fence/barrier exists between the population center in Eilat and Egypt controlled Sinai.

Since I’m on the topic of lines, let me tell you a bit about this ‘green line’ you referred to. Sure, there is the historical record, the Armistice lines, etc. There’s something else too. It’s a bit less political, or maybe it is pure politics to describe this; I would suggest you take a look at satellite imagery of Israel, the West Bank lands, the Negev, the Gaza, and Sinai.

See the forests? That's Israel. See where it ends and desert begins? That's the West Bank, the Sinai, and Gaza.

Now think about the phrase "the Jews made the desert bloom.”
Not many people are aware of it, but the world's largest reforestation effort is in Israel. Israel is probably the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a gain of trees. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is responsible for that. It constantly plants new trees and creates new forests every year, making Israel greener and greener. Indeed, during the Lebanon war the JNF was up in the forests of the upper Galilee fighting fires, protecting trees (the firefighters were under fire while they were fighting fires). Immediately after the fighting ended, hundreds of volunteers were in the destroyed forests, planting replacement trees.

The situation on the other side is very different. The few natural reserves that the British left were left destroyed and unprotected by Jordan. Rivers are polluted. Less than 10% of the land on what has always been Jordan is used for farming. The Jordan River is left untouched, except for dumping garbage.

Speaking of garbage dumping, because the Palestinian Authority (the governing body of the Arab lands in the West Bank) is more focused on maintaining high levels of hatred of Israel, infrastructure projects are virtually non-existent in the West Bank. There is no efficient garbage handling in the Palestinian cities and villages. Their ways of getting rid of trash is taking it a mile away from their villages and burning it or dumping it in the rivers and valleys in unpopulated areas. Which not only badly pollutes the environment, but also leaves a constant stench in the outskirts of their villages. Sometimes it's so bad, that driving in a few miles radius from such a site without throwing up becomes a challenge.

Sewage in Gaza spills right into the Mediterranean Sea. Since the Israeli built treatment plant in Gaza went out of order in the 90s, they just let the sewers flow into the sea.

Clearly, the Palestinians have much bigger problems than their environment to handle. But so did young Israel in the 1950s, where every home had a JNF collection tin to plant as many trees as possible, to fund agricultural innovations in the desert, to bring necessary resources to bear to help feed the people and be a good steward of the earth. The green line is a very visible demarcation between a people and a nation interested in nation building and a variety of nations and terror-inspired people interested in maintaining hatred, poverty, and terror. A sad commentary on the aspirations of a people.

So whom should you really have a problem with?

You said in your posting that you have problems with “elements of the government of Israel” that are apparently making poor decisions. You say you have problems with media (and academic) elements in the US who are “single minded(ly)” supporting the poor decisions of the Israeli government.

Let’s look at this a moment.
First of all, as a student of political science, I’m sure you are aware that governments make poor decisions all the time; and I’m sure you are aware that one person’s poor choice is another person’s excellent decision. I will not debate your right to determine your definition of a poor decision. In fact, I will defend your right to voice it. I will however, let you know that an argument indicting a government’s decisions should not be made without understanding how it fits the puzzle of the broader geo-political spectrum. As I mentioned at the beginning of this very long piece, I am more interested in the broader macro influences than any single occurrence or incident. As much as those incidents may inform us about intentions, they do not in themselves lend to broad generalizations or indictments.

The Arab world has had numerous chances to forge a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Arab conflict. From the beginning, as I brought up earlier, Israel has been offering her hand in peace. Israel keeps her other hand well armed in case it is needed, but the first offer is not one of aggression.

Yasser Arafat, back in 2000, rejected what is called the Clinton parameters of the Camp David offers. The Clinton parameters would have produced an independent Palestinian state with 100 percent of Gaza, a little more than 97 percent of the West Bank, and Jerusalem’s status would have been guided by the principle that what is currently Israeli will be Israeli and what is currently Arab will be part of Palestine, meaning that Jewish Jerusalem — East and West — would be united, while Arab East Jerusalem would become the capital of the Palestinian state. Israel was prepared to follow through on that offer.

Before that, there were a string of offers stretching back to Ben-Gurion in the late 40’s, to Golda Meir, Shimon Peres and Itzhak Rabin. All offers have been rebuffed by a succession of Arab leaders. Israel accepted the partition plan in 1947 and the Arab nations refused; primarily because the Arab nations and leaders at the time could not accept Jews living among them. Any deal would have legitimized a Jewish entity, and the leaders in the Arab world could not be seen to accept such a notion. Then, like now, the fundamentalists rule. Then, like now, the tribal nature of the Arab psyche dominates and overrules any movement toward accepting Israel. The Jewish leadership of Israel, on the other hand, saw it as a fresh start at nation building. The Israelis accepted a flawed plan because they desperately wanted a land of their own in the land of their forefathers.

Conflicts within the Middle East cannot be separated from its peoples' culture. Seventh-century Arab tribal culture influenced Islam and its adherents' attitudes toward non-Muslims, and it has been influencing the decisions of the Arab nations toward Israel since before 1948.

Today, the embodiment of Arab culture and tribalism within Islam impacts everything from family relations, to governance, to conflict. While many diplomats and analysts view the Arab-Israeli dispute through the prism of political grievance, the roots really lie in culture and Arab tribalism. The Arab tribal belief is unwilling to relinquish the tribal rights of retribution to a central governing body.

In tribal law, the Sheikh (the patriarch of the tribe/family) is the leader, but the tribal laws are sacrosanct and even the Sheikh cannot overrule them, let alone any central governing body.

Even today, in most Arab nations, tribal law prevails. Women are not equal to men, have little or no rights in society, and cannot argue against their husband, ever. An aggrieved party seeking justice is afforded the right to kill the one who wronged him and/or his family. This is the prevailing legal system in most of the Arab world. The central government does not impose authority that is counter to tribal law. Tribal law is, therefore, based on the absence of any central authority.

Thus, in tribal law there is no State interested in punishing offenders in order to deter others from crime. There is only the aggrieved party seeking justice.
I don’t know about you, but I have a real problem with this. Much more so than with some isolated decisions made by a democratic nation’s elected leaders.

As to your contention that the media stand behind Israel, well, some media do. Some media do not. As argued earlier, there is enough anti-Israel vitriol out there as well as the Fox network stand by your man attitude. Indeed, you can find media in Israel challenging the government’s decisions daily. Find me one Arab nation that allows that. I have problem with that.

My problem is not with Fox, everybody knows their politics. My problem is with the United Nations, which has been slowly re-writing geography, peoplehood, and history in the Middle East. My problem is with France, when it lets the France2 TV network broadcast lies and does nothing. My problem is with Britain when it allows anti-Semitic Holocaust deniers public airways. My problem is with the Vatican, which reinstated a Bishop who denies the existence of the gas chambers.

These should be your problems too. It is disturbing that none of this made its way into your argument. The destiny of the Middle East is not yet written. Unless and until the world realizes that Israel is not the problem, that the ever increasing anti-Israel belief based on the terrible truth of genocide (“throw them into the sea”) by the Arab world is the real problem, the only democracy in the middle east and a model of Democratic ideals and free society is in danger of losing a war.

Realize what this means.

Any Arab nation can wage a war against Israel, lose the war and remain viable. Israel only has to lose one war.

I hope this rather long post has had a positive effect on your beliefs. If not; well, I tried.

Neal Elyakin, Ann Arbor, MI 3-22-09