Palestinians (and I'm sure many Israelis as well) need help to learn to live "normal" healthy lives. I've seen the kind of destruction you mentioned in Gaza on First Nations Reserves in Canada. Dr. Jess Ghannam (Board Member of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Chief of Medical Psychology at the University of California San Francisco) said the following in an interview July 2004 (www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10652.shtml) "What about the psychological impact on women and children in the midst of this horrific occupation (in Gaza)? I think Dr Mona spoke very eloquently about that actually, but I would just like to put it in a context and it is something that Dr El-Farra did mention is that we have to understand that the psychological health and well-being, the psychological wellness if you will, doesn’t just start with what is happening in Gaza right now – we have to go back 56 years.  And so, if we are to understand the context of the trauma for Palestinians, we have to look at it from three perspectives: We are actually going on now for four generations of Palestinians living in Palestine right now who have been traumatised either from al-Nakbah from ’48 (our Catastrophe), what happened in ’67, the ongoing occupation of our Land, as well as the First and the Second Intifada – so we have what is called Trans-generational Trauma. Secondly, we have Continuous Trauma.  There isn’t a single day in Palestine when a child or a woman is not confronted with a life-threatening phenomenon.  When we talk about trauma in the west, it is usually one person experiencing one life-threatening event but in Palestine, Palestinians confront life-threatening phenomena every day so there is a Continuous Trauma. The third factor is Multiple Trauma. So, you know, someone may have to bear witness to their home being destroyed, see their children be, you know, murdered or assassinated and witness a relative being beaten in front of them all in one day. So this would be Multiple Trauma. In this context we have to have a very different and more complex analysis of what it means to have psychological health and wellness within the Palestinian context.  Now having said that, the research indicates that, especially when you compare this with children all over the world, the number of children who have experienced at least one symptom, for example, of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is well over 80 per cent." So, in other words, Palestinian children are exposed, when you compare this to any other war-zone, you know, if you look at Bosnia, if you look at East Timor, if you look at Sub-Saharan Africa where there are other kinds of war-phenomena, Palestinian children actually experience some of the highest rates of traumatic phenomena in the world.

Other than the Palestinians (and other muslims also, if you insist)there seems to be no other "people" on this planet so intent to go on exacting revenge forever and ever and ever and ever. Certainly Jewish children were exposed to so much more trauma and destruction and loss of life, limb and property. Not to speak of the numbers and of the trauma experienced even in the second and third generation Holocaust survivors. Yet none of them even consider any kind of terrorist acts against their murderers and tormenters, i.e. the Nazi SS fo every nationality and denomination, among which the Karelian Finns, who even volunteered for the elite Waffen SS on the Russian front. Madam, you are not an innocent or duped Palestinian supporter, you are not even a useful ididot. You are inciting to murder, you are a terrorist supporter and perhaps even activist, you are working according to a very precise agenda, that of continuing Holocaust by proxy, namely your newly found Palestinian neo-Nazi allies. How is that for hitting a nerve?

Dr. NO, I find your unfounded accusations to so preposterous that they are laughable and not worth a response. Namecalling is always easier than addressing the issues. In any case, I oppose the settlements and the military occupation of the Palestinians. The collective punishments, the bombings, the bulldozings of homes and orchards, the humiliation of Palestinians at checkpoints, the curfews, the denial of permits, the pre-warnings of house demolitions by phone are ALL a form of TERROR against the Palestinians.

I wouldn't quite define them unfounded. And it is not I who is calling names, I am quoting sources: http://serbo.blogspot.com/2006/09/martti-ahtisaari-patron-of-nazi-ss.html http://serbianna.com/blogs/savich/?p=16 http://www.yle.fi/mot/oa111102/manuscript.htm http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1715905/posts Somewhere in these links is a quote - All Karelian Finns who fought along the Nazis are collectively guitly of war crimes. Everybody knows who the Waffen SS were and what they did. You may well laugh, others won't. Your post #54 on this board is addressing no issue. It is pure anti-semitic, anti-Israel rabid Nazi rhetoric: "It is also debatable whether Jewish people really qualified for a "self-determined" state. What does it mean to be Jewish"? They are ethnically diverse and don't all speak the same language. How are they "a people"? The same could be said about America, Australia and Canada. Surely there is more ethnic and linguistic diversity in those parts of the world. As to who is a Jew, again, who are you to even question that issue? Unless of course, it is an unfounded question you'd rather laugh at. On the other hand, who is a Palestinian refugee? According to the UN: "The United Nations definition of a "Palestinian refugee" is a person whose "normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict," i.e. someone who may have well resided in Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Syria until 1945. Or elsewhere in the Arab world. As you can see, nobody except me is really paying attention to you anymore. And I am about to lose my interest as well.

I find no evidence to support your namecalling of me and my ancestors in what you have provided. It's either irrelevant or not reputable. Furthermore, it's TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to the discussion of settlements and Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

It is damaging your image of objective supporter of Palestinian rights. You reject anything you don't like, you promote only what you like, even if they are FACTS. I was expecting that. Again, my hope is that others would wake up to who you are and what you promote. My aim is to convince others that Israel is not what and how you present it. What's more, you are encouraging Palestinians violent resistance to Israeli presence in the area, which is ultimately exacting a heavier price on the Palestinians themselves. Only yesterday Haniyeh reiterated his refusal to recognize the State of Israel and start talking peace and borders. Apparently he likes what's going on in Gaza. 5 arms-smuggling tunnels were discovered in Gaza today, 20 recently. Really, Madam, you cannot think all of us are THAT stupid as to be enthralled by your discourse, no matter how adept you are at it and how you try to discredit others whose OPINION you dislike.

I actually attended a talk on Finland and the Holocaust in Toronto several years ago. The Jews THANKED the Finns for their overall support. My friend attended a similar ceremony in Ottawa where the Finns were also thanked. Eleven Finnish Jews died in the holocaust (not in Finland). I have seen two war camps listed in Eastern Karelia as concentration camps, but they were prison camps for Finns who were against the war and did not want to fight. Because Finland wanted to keep their hard won 1917 independence from Russia, they were fighting AGAINST Russia rather than WITH Germany. My parents were evacuees who lost their home TWICE. They were hard days for the Finns. Finland had been a battleground for wars between the Russians and the Swedes. In spite of many conquests by one side or the other, Finns managed to maintain their SISU and presevere against all odds (like the Jews?). Did you know that Finnish architects won the competition to build a holocaust museum in Poland? http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2006/09/it-is-time-for-jews-to-think-about.html "Mannerheim [Finnish field marshall, president] never had to threaten Germans with anyone - they just asked for Finnish Jews, Finland refused, and that was pretty much it. 

Finland was not the only Axis country to protect its Jews - Bulgaria and Japan protected its own, and Italy's and Hungary's Jews were not deported until Mussolini's and Horthy's regimes fell - but IIRC Finland was the only country that had Jews fighting in its army alongside Germans, which led to some really weird moments, such as Jews getting Iron Crosses and Germans having to defend the Finnish field synagogue from the Russians." There is a Finnish text at http://www.holocaustinfo.org/faq/suomessa/ which goes into greater depth but I could not find an English translation. It is a Finnish website providing holocaust information.