Stop your lies Ray! "Palestine" is what the Romans called Israel after they kicked out the Jews. It has nothing to do with the Arab land thieves. In fact Arabs can't even prounounce "Palestine" because the letter P doesn't exist in Arabic. Tell your son the truth! The Arabs started calling themsleves "Palestinians" to steal Jewish land! There has never been a "Palestinian" people. The land has always been JEWISH! Free Israel from the Arab occupiers! http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/palestine.htm

KIds are great and they are like little sponges when it comes to what they hear their parents, siblings and just about anyone else saying around them. And it certainly does matter what they hear and what they are taught! So I would strongly suggest that as a Palestinian who seems to care about peace between Israelis and Pals that you encourange the PA to start printing textbooks that don't teach anti-semitism and that Israel has not ever existed. Plus ban imams who preach hate from their pulpits. That is when peace will really start to grow. Stop teaching hate and the world will grow together rather than apart!

Really made me laugh, thanks Ray and ignore the hate-crazed racist meshuggenahs above, and perhaps below

...come pearls of wisdom. "Shalam" is a beautiful word. I think your little Aaron is onto something very meaningful here!

Thanks ... maybe we can start a new movement here SHALAM! ... Let's push the positive and look for a future that is bright for everyone, and not look back at the past and always use it as a cause of anger and hatreed ... wec can all keep our beliefs ... I also want to thank Daisy for her constant reminder of how silly the hatred really is :) Ray Hanania

iam 60 years old still saying shalam instead of salam as iam arabian and my mother and father so simly i have a problem in articulation ,,,,surly your son has the same problem ,,,and the problem is after that that the child inhereted it from jews or non jews ...this is the problem ...as jews always are perfect in every thing and they are superior in every thing .....it is thier openian only

It's a mistake to think that if we just merge everything will be ok, that Shalam is the answer. It's not. A bi national state is not the solution. It's the job of the Palestinians to be Palestinians. It's our job to be the Israeli's. This is what we're paid for, it's what we do.

I don't always agreement with your columns which support compromise ma'a Israel. I think Israel must do mch more then they have been. Yet maybe there is change. You don't see it here in the talks but maybe Isrealis do want real peace with Palestenians and will compromize and dismantle the settlements and share our Jerusalem. Many Palestenians do not want to share, but I beleve will when time to comes. I wish Isrealsi will show they will returns the lands from 1967. Shalam! I like it.

Those who wish seperateness like some of the posts above are lost. The future, is the recognition that we are here on this planet together as one. We are all interconnected and every action effects all of as as a whole consciousness.

People have a fundamental right to live in their own communities, according to their own customs. They want to choose their own leaders who understand them and whom they can trust (?). This counts for Israeli's as well as Palestinians. For Dutch as well as for Aboriginals. All the other stuff about being interconnected is a whole lot of bullshit that has gotten a lot of people killed over the years. Folks in Yougoslavia don't want to be interconnected, the peoples of the former Soviet Union didn't want to live together. The Czechs and the Slowaks split up despite being nearly identical nations, the Chechnians are fighting to seperate themselves. The French and the Flemish Belgians hardly speak to each other, the Swiss live in seperate cantons. The East Timorians want to be independant, the Kurds in Iraq are making damn sure they'll never be ruled by muslims again, the Palestinians don't want to live in a Jewish state and the Jews don't want to live in a Muslim state. It's called common sense

Kurds are not muslim? I was wrong for 56 years, what the hell do you know?

That may be your seperation atitude, but like it or not, we share the same AIR, the same OCEAN, the same planet- and actually the same global economy- or thats the way its going. Keep religion seperate from state and you will see, problems disappear- Obviously most of Israelis problems are due to it being a JEWISH priveleged state-No?

I have been reading this paper online for quite sometime now and Ray's articles are the second ones I read just after the news. What amazes me is the amount of venom some people vent over what is basically an article written with a sense of humour and which should be read with a smile on yr face. Instead, some of the feedback letters are written by people who are so devoid of humour that they totally fail to see the article as what it is...just simply an article to read, absorb, amile or frown at and then go on to the next one. The kind of language sometimes used, indicated that either the writer has a severe inferiority complex or someone who just has to drag politics into each and everything..and quite obviously cannot bear the thought of an Arab (-American) living happily with a Jewish wife...!

Ray has a mint atitude to life,humourous and open minded. Its wonderful he can make fun and at the same time love, both sides and perspectives to the jewish-Palestinian problem. He lives in the USA and he's the type of people the USA loves. His child is the future- like all children, but his in particular for the ME. being half Palestinian and half jewish. Wonderful if you ask me.

I used to call people stupa- as in stupid. One of my first words. No, my parents were not 'proud" especially my random hellos to nice people "stupa" but the more I think about it as I am older is, maybe I saw somehting in these people. Anyhow, your kid could be brilliant and just calling humans as they sometimes are.