Washington Post

While watching the news (trying to get both eyes open), and browsing my email, etc., I came across this article titled Aggression Under False Pretenses in the Washington Post from 11 July. Although, I shouldn't be surprised the Post would print something like this, I am. The author, a Palestinian, blames Israel for it's problems. Images of the after effects of suicide bombers in cities around Israel come to mind.

I hope that Americans will give careful and well-informed thought to root causes and historical realities, in which case I think they will question why a supposedly "legitimate" state such as Israel has had to conduct decades of war against a subject refugee population without ever achieving its goals.

Yes, we see the root causes. Women and children being shredded by bombs set off by lunatics on buses, in pizza parlors, in shopping centers. We are aware of some extremists on the Israeli side, but don't see them going into the West Bank to blast innocents to the here after. What does Palestine produce? I mean other than terror, not only for it's neighbor, but for it's own people? Are there farms or factories that export products? I've never seen anything saying "Made in Palestine".

Israel's unilateral movements of the past year will not lead to peace. These acts -- the temporary withdrawal of forces from Gaza, the walling off of the West Bank -- are not strides toward resolution but empty, symbolic acts that fail to address the underlying conflict. Israel's nearly complete control over the lives of Palestinians is never in doubt, as confirmed by the humanitarian and economic suffering of the Palestinians since the January elections. Israel's ongoing policies of expansion, military control and assassination mock any notion of sovereignty or bilateralism. Its "separation barrier," running across our land, is hardly a good-faith gesture toward future coexistence.

It seems to me that Israel has tried it's best to placate the Palestinians in every way possible, and are repaid by the slaughter of innocents. I'd build a wall too, if it meant keeping the hate filled extremists from my home. The underlying conflict comes from the need to protect themselves from a government that has vowed to destroy it, and refuses to reject the violent Hamas. I know this was supposedly a "democratically elected" government. I see nothing democratic about though. Do the Palestinian people really know what is going on? Do they truly support it? Seems they do, at least to me. We see Palestinian women praising their sons and daughters for murdering others, and killing themselves. I guess my idea of democracy is a bit different from theirs. I'd be angry if my daughter blew herself up along with innocents, all for the glory of, not God, but an ideology that has lasted for way too long. Peace doesn't seem to be want the Palestinians want. Well, not as long as Israel exists.

Surely the American people grow weary of this folly, after 50 years and $160 billion in taxpayer support for Israel's war-making capacity -- its "defense." Some Americans, I believe, must be asking themselves if all this blood and treasure could not have bought more tangible results for Palestine if only U.S. policies had been predicated from the start on historical truth, equity and justice.

Yep, I weary alright. How many billions of American taxpayer dollars have propped up the terrorists of Palestine? If we sent no aid to Israel, they wouldn't shut down, as Palestine basically has since foreign aid was shut off. Perhaps if Palestine started joining the 21st century, creating, instead of destroy, they'd be able to stand on their own, with little aid from other countries.