General Discussion

I was born after the war, a white, catholic boy. I grew up in the 50s and 60s believing in the right of Israel against the rights of the "Arabs".

I read Leon Uris' "Exodus" and James Michener's "The Source", and, later, Herman Wouk's "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance". I felt those books and their stories strongly.

Driven by the guilt over the United States' complacency during the early period of the Holocaust I rejoiced in Israel's triumph in the Six Day War of '67 and was relieved after the Yom Kipper War in '73 ended.

However, as early as the 80s, cracks in the images, the propaganda, and the narrative began to show. The continuing terrorist attacks justified Israel but the actual plight of the Palestine people did not.

Now I live in a quandary wishing the U.S. had some solution, some hope, and some actual influence. But "we the people" do not. The constant wars have bored us. We cannot focus, we don't want to hear about it, we want some "magical" event to come about.

What? The Rapture? Armageddon? A final solution? We don't know.

Today both sides are represented by a violent, aggressive, single minded minority with the majority trapped in the middle. The U.S. is dominated by a corrupt, venal, ignorant administration with no plans, no concepts, and no desired for any of this to end.

We are as helpless as the peoples of both Israel and Palestine.