My goodness, did he write that it was a largely voluntary exit of the Jewish people from Israel? Is he kidding himself or trying to kid us? The Jewish people have been bullied for centuries and they finally had enough and now they have Israel. They are willing to die to defend it and they will not brook anyone trying to take it away. There was no willing migration from Israel. Every people that occupied that area tried to either exterminate the Jews or force them to leave. I read that one part and I couldn't go any further. Sure, the Palestinians have it rough. I feel for them. The Kurds do too and the Arabs and the rest of the world aren't crying for a free Kurdistan. Sorry, Israel has a right to exist and they need all the land they have to be defensible since every country around them has attacked them at one time or another.
Uhm, does the author realize that this most peaceful of activities to which she alludes, prayer, has been used as a means to sneak bombs and weapons into highly populated areas in the past? That Muslim extremists actually blew up mosques? Of course she does. But stating those facts would hurt her blatantly one-sided anti Israel hit piece. Sorry, I'm not buying it.
Don't get me wrong, Israel is not completely blameless in this. Do they overreact… sometimes. Of course, when they have terrorists that board buses and blow themselves up killing scores of Israeli citizens I can see why they react the way they do. When they have rockets and mortar rounds routinely lobbed on them from their neighbor, I can understand why they mistrust the Arabs.
Imagine if you will what you would do if the US was routinely attacked by extremists sheltered by Mexico and and Canada. Attacks that maim and kill US citizens. Then imagine people sneaking in from those same places coming here and launching suicide attacks. Now, the population of the US is about 40 times that of Israel. So, an attack that kills 75 people in Israel would be equivalent to an attack killing about 3,000 here in the US. Sounds like what happened on 911. What would US citizens demand. Yup, and that is why Israel acts the way they do.
So there is just enough fact mixed in the with BS here to lend some degree of credence to this piece. Here is the thing though, the Israelis offered a heck of a deal to the Palestinians in '93 and it was Arafat and the Palestinians who refused it. They got the vast majority of what they wanted and instead decided they wanted 100%. So they got nothing. Imagine how much better a place the world would be had they taken that offer. That was 24 years ago. They'd be their own country now. The Arabs and Israelis could actually start to make peace. And tension would be so much lower. Instead, they still live in refugee camps. I bet they wish they could go back to that time.