RJ, it's difficult to converse with you. Your writing sounds educated and worldly, but the message is so contrived and twisted. Israel has never called for the destruction of the Palestinian People. Israel has never kicked anyone out of their homes (unless the homes housed known terrorists). You say the 'actions' of Israel indicates they want to exterminate the Palestinians, but only the Palestinians have overtly called for the destruction of Israel by electing Hamas to power whose open purpose is the destruction of the Jewish state. Your writing demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of history, but that doesn't surprise me. The extreme Muslims have purposefully mucked up the historical waters. They don't want you to know the truth about history so they can serve their power agenda. It IS Israeli land. If you do not accept the Ancient historical claim to it, then you have no choice but to accept the recent historical wars. You are right about one thing though. The Palestinians are an oppressed people. But they are not oppressed by the Israelis. They are kept in a constant state of poverty and malcontent by their own leaders, and leaders abroad who seek to maintain control over them and as much of the world as possible by sword or by word. Imagine the benefits they could have reaped by aligning themselves with a people (the Israelis) who in the last 100 years have turned that desert into a thriving economic power in the region, which has virtually no natural resources. As for your reference to the Holocaust, I will not even validate it with a response. I'm sure your next sentence was to indicate that the Holocaust was never as big or terrible as it was, a page from the Iranian Presidents book. Among all of this, I both fear you and pity you at the same time. Our conversation is a reflection of the problems which exist between our two peoples, and there does not appear to be change in the near future.

Brian, I would NEVER downplay the unimaginable horrors and evil of the Holocaust. NO people deserve such treatment, not the Jews, nor Sinti, Roma..... NOR the Armenians or Tutsis who were also victims of genocide. I have just finished reading Barbara Coloroso's book called Extraordinary Evil; A brief History of Genocide. When she describes the red flags of warning that there is not a conflict, but the contempt of a genocide at play, I worry about what I'm hearing and seeing happening in Israel. What I am noticing in Israeli treatment of Palestinians, under the name of security, is sounding more and more like prejudice, discrimination and ethnic cleansing/ genocide. Have you checked out the proposal of Ram Caspi for Gaza? Or Major General (Res.) Amira Levin's ideas of dividing the Gaza Strip into squares and after every Qassam destroying one; Yosef Lapid, former justice minister, supported the proposal. In my opinion the collective punishments used by Israel are inhumane and have no other purpose but to kill off Palestinians and provoke others so there are more excuses to kill off even more Palestinians .. or to get them to flee and leave Gaza and the West Bank for the Israelis. Using physical violence is NOT an acceptable way to solve problems in a civilized world. Mature moral people would say NO WAY to such techniques. Bullies use physical violence and verbal abuse, not people who want to establish a reciprocal and peaceful relationship with others. Unfortunately, after a while victims start to act like their oppressors and so now it is difficult to find honest brokers for peace on either side. I despair for the fate of our world.

RJ You seem to focas on the Israelis as the problem ....and basicly ignore the agitation that the militants in the pasistinian population do....If that agitation was not there most of the problems in that region would go away...and the the palistinians and israelis would live in peace side by side..... whenever a sucicde bomber walks into a mall or bus and blows up and kills dozens of israelis ....the inevitable bitterness among the israeli population will produce overreaction on thier part that results in abuse....might want to take that situation home to a mall near you where maybe one of your relitives has been killed as result of a sucide bomber...I'm sure there would be some pretty intense emotions on your part.....mulitply that on weekly basis in israel ...