Thanks, Naomi for those encouraging words. After reading too much of the hate-filled rhetoric from the likes of Oz and his ilk over the last few days, I was really getting discouraged. I hope what you say is really true.

Very interesting analogy, if these land thieves, homeless garbage people are the same as the rest of you then all of you can't be trusted and all of you are like Meir Kahana the stinkiest of all the garbage, realy cool people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD LUCK

And Oz is just an idiot that should have his citizenship stripped and be sent out of Israel into gaza. And I am suggesting to take this action to do him a favor, because i know he wants it!

Because anyone who comes to expel you from your home is NOT your brother.

As much as I admire the works of Naomi Ragen, she is not accurate in describing Amos Oz as a fanatic leftist. If she had described Uri Avneri as such, or Amira Hass, that's another story. The narrative that Ms. Ragen describes of her friends' experiences is illustraative but it is only one example--there are others such as the one she describes, and ther are other that do indeed fit into the category of deluded magical thinkers. Nor does Ragen mention theissue of 8000 Jews out of 1.3 million people in Gaza controlling 20% of the land and 20% of the water. Setting up settlements in areas of high Arab populaton desnisty was a mistake in the first place--despite the fact that various Israeli governments promoted and supported these efforts. If anyone here among the commentors can discuss the issue rather than engaging in name -calling --whatever you think of Amos Oz, he is no idiot. Pleawe, this is a civilized newspaper, not the Jerry Springer Show.

Politically I am right wing. Yet every day I read every opinion column in Haaretz. Why, because I am open minded enough that my mind may be changed (which for the record no one has been able to give me any intelligent reason to do so). I decided last week to stop reading their columns because the hatred for people like me was so palpable it made me feel crushed and miserble. So thank you for your article - it's pleasing to know that because I am right wing, religious and live in the West Bank that I have not been written off by everyone

A very nice article that is uplifting and optimisitic after the events of last week, but the following suggests that the family hadn't left and moved to new accomodation before they were obliged to .. "Paul told them, “This must be so hard for all of you. I’m sorry.” They told him how sorry they were. They embraced and walked together out of the house. and begs the question .. why were they still there; why hadn't they left already ? Michael

i would like for all those who talked of armageddon and civil war to apologise to those it defamed before the disengagement. if these people are not held accountable for their lies they will carry on libelling and defaming a whole community. there were no shots, punches or real violence and not one person from the left has said hey, we were wrong they are not what we labelled them as.

...I'd like to see an apology too. An apology for throwing a spoiled brat's tantrum at having to obey a perfectly legal, if disagreable, state dictum, an apology for the robbed-cossack whines of the most heavily subsidized, forever tax-free rich people we have, an apology for insulting and spitting at our sons and making our daughters in uniform cry, an apology for Holocaust denial a lot worse than what the most imaginative of antisemites could ever come up with, an apology for abusing and brainwashing your own children, an apology for making all of us look so much like our hate-filled, racist and murderous neighbors and enemies, an apology for defiling Judaism and turning it into your barbaric real-estate cult, an apology for turning all of us into oppressors and occupiers for 38 years, and a apology for tearing our flag and spitting on it in front of the cameras.

Can Any Sane person distingwish between "'hanita" and Ariel.??Both are yeshuvim in Eretz Yisrael. Neve Dekalim deserved exactly the same treatment as Mishmar Haemek and Ein Dor. After seeing how Zahal was literary forced to evacuate people from their homes, I don't feel safe anywhere in Israel. Perhaps Bush will call on his stooges Sharon & Peres to evacuate Ra'anana, after all it was occupied by Arabs up to 100 years ago!!

To bring an empirical example of a wedding, attended by religious and secular guests, is not a convincing analysis of a deep sociological problem. We are talking here of people who have totally different conceptions of what they want the State of Israel to be. Two sets of completely antithetical values are involved. Furthermore, there are no grounds for rational discourse between them. Religious Jews cannot question the divinely inspired axioms of their beliefs and secular humanists are sceptical about all axioms. Intellectually, there is no common ground between them. I believe that the only solution is to separate State and Religion, while safeguarding the rights of the religious to maintain their faith.

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/palestine.htm

The right to freedom of speech. Freedom to protest without being beaten and jailed. Freedom to not be cleansed off Jewish land for being a Jew. Total freedom to Jewish holy places. Jews are arrested if they pray or suspected of praying on Judaism’s holiest site - the Temple Mount! Nothing has changed in 2000 years Rights so freely given to others are denied to Jews. . The terrible hate for Jews revealed in ethnic Jew cleansing. The stealing of Jewish land, businesses and assets for people of another religion. The denial of human rights for Jews is the way Jews have always been treated. Intensely pressured by the U.S.EU and UN, Israeli leaders continue 2000 years of evil Jew hate.

good story we palastinians have many stories ...i have one it is not of me but of us iam from jerusalem when i was a child a woman from deer yasin told her story in1949 ..she was a child and when the jews [as she said ]enter the village and reaching her house they were ten in the house she was playing alone behind pellows and matresses she said that she was hidden there silent afraid for one day untill her uncle found her she said that the all family i mean the nine persons were killed inside the house which was one room only after that she lived with her uncle married her cusen ..from that time iknow we are us as my tears on my cheeks sign this fact

Thank you Naomi Regen for finally voicing an opinion of sanity amidst an ocean of self-hating and self-denying Jews. The left cannot afford to accept that we are one people, for in doing so ,they have to relinquish their adoration of our staunch enemies which are their raison d'etre! If only the left was aware of the fact that no matter what the opinion of Jews is, they, as well as all other Jews,will continue to be hated for their very Jewishness ,even though for a leftist it is but a biological, geographical fact!