Your response to me was more polite than my somewhat sarcastic comments deserved. I thank you for your courtesy. This is now an old thread, and you may not even see this, my final response. There are some nuances in your response that I could cavil at; for example, the USS Liberty did not have to be declassified; the attack on it was all over the newspapers at a time when I had enlisted in the US Army and was quite interested in who was likely to try to kill me. I want to go to what I feel are the critical points in your note. First, I am by no means trying to drive a wedge between Jews and non-Jews. I do not think I have ever said anything that could be construed as anti-Jewish. And if have, I did not intend it and apologize for it. I know quite a bit about the history of anti-Semitism, and it is invaraibly ugly and stupid, fur die Gasse as one of its more cynical practicioners said. Second, I completely agree with you about the menace that Islam (or at least large portions of Islam) represents to the civilized world, a world of which Israel is a part. Unlike many critics of Israel, I have no problems at all with Israel doing its quite reasonable best to protect its citizens or to establish a rational and defensible border after decades of failure by the Arabs ever to offer a solution consistent with the continued survival of Israel or to suppress constant guerilla warfare against civilian populations. Third, I agree with you that conflicts from the past, eg US against Britain or US against Japan, must be recognized as the past. Peace is too important to hold grudges. Fourth, I reference the long history of Israeli attacks on the US not to keep old wrongs fresh, but because new wrongs keep happening. It is not true that every few years we find British or Japanese spies in the US Defense Department. It is true that we find Israeli ones, usually quite unapologetic like Pollard. These are not acts of a friendly country despite the vehement excuses of Israel's Zionist apologists. Israel has been particularly aggressive in selling arms and military technology to the Chinese, an action quite likely to end up killing Americans. I do not like people who make it likely that Americans will be killed. I refer to these past events because they seem to me to evidence a continuing enmity on the part of the Israeli state against the US. Fifth, the enmity of Israel against the US seems inherent. Israel was founded on sectarian and socialist ideals, the precise contrary to those on which the US is founded. That structural antagonism is evidenced in these talkbacks every day. Finally, I am always willing to listen to argument. If you or Gene have rebuttals, I shall consider them in the courteous spirit that you both have shown to date.