(Revised 6-25-2008)

The conflict and violence in the Mid-East will not be resolved or ended by fighting and killing. In fact, fighting and killing only perpetuates more fighting and killing. If it is allowed to continue, it would be a never-ending cycle of retaliation after retaliation, with much more death and destruction.

That is why it is now very important to understand the history of the Mid-East conflict ever since 1917, and also the history of American support to Israel for the last fifty years. After all, a great deal of American financial, material, military, and moral support has been provided to the Israelis ever since 1948, when the modern State of Israel was established. In fact, it could be said that without the billions of dollars per year that America has been giving and still gives to Israel, there may not have been, or may not still be, a State of Israel.

That is why Americans now need to know exactly what that support has meant, and what its impact and consequences have been to the Palestinians and other Arabs. Americans need to be more aware of the Palestinian side of the story. Then Americans will finally understand why so many Palestinians and Arabs hate or resent America, right along with Israel.

The Israeli side of the story is, of course, very different, and there are very good reasons for that as well. Israeli suffering at the hands of Palestinian warriors and terrorists is obviously the biggest part of it, but I don't need to tell you about that. Since the U.S. Government and television media is for the most part pro-Israeli, most Palestinian offenses against Israel have been well documented and widely reported by the American media. From the coverage of the war in 1967, to the Palestinian terrorist killing of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, to the Yom Kippur War in 1973, all the way to the latest Palestinian Jihadist attacks against Israel, Americans have been very informed. But, even though the American media has recently become at least a little better at telling both sides of the story, Americans are generally still not very informed about the grievances or the motivation of the Palestinians.

Of course, America has been pro-Israel because the Jewish people are very much a part of Western civilization. After all, Jewish Americans originally immigrated from Western Europe to America, and then many immigrated from Europe and America to modern Israel. Besides that, the Jewish people have contributed a great deal to Western civilization, especially in science, medicine, entertainment, comedy, music, business and merchandising. Many Jews are renowned and greatly respected and appreciated all over the world. In fact, the world is in certain respects a better place because of the greatness of the Jewish people.

However, the Israeli government has not always been so great. In fact, it is often terrible in terms of its use of deadly military force, and now we need to be fair and learn both sides of the story.

First we should know that today Palestinians are called Palestinians because their homeland had been known as Palestine for thousands of years, until 1948. That's when Palestine was taken over, broken up, and divided up between Jordan, Egypt, and the new State of Israel. When that happened, more than a million Palestinians (according to their account) were displaced and made refugees, because their land and their homes were taken away from them by the Israelis. Ever since then the dislocated Palestinian refugees have suffered in various ways, and many of the Palestinians who managed to keep their homes in Israel by becoming Israeli citizens say they don't have it too much better. They say they have been treated as second-class citizens in their own home land, and do not have rights equal to the Jewish Israelis.

As you will see, there has been a long history of dislocation, discrimination, oppression and persecution against Palestinians which goes back all the way to 1917. It expanded and got worse in 1948, and it has continued ever since, and got even worse since September 2000. Palestinian land, communities and neighborhoods have been occupied and ruled by occupying Israeli military forces. Palestinians have been incarcerated, tortured, killed and assassinated. Israelis have destroyed Palestinian homes, orchards, and other property. And Palestinians have had practically no say about it, no rights, no legal recourse. But we haven't heard much about it, and only in recent years have we started to hear and learn a little more about it.

This has astounded many people in the world, considering that the history of the Jews is one of being the victims of persecution themselves in Europe, and they were even victims of horrendously brutal treatment and mass murder at the hand of the Nazis in Germany during World War II. American Jews suffered persecution by Nazi sympathizers in America while Hitler was rising to power, and white American racists went to the extent of putting signs in their store fronts that said: "Niggers and Jews Not Allowed." Many American Jews found they had to change their last names to English-American-sounding names to avoid being discriminated against, and they did everything they could to be assimilated into American society.

However, even though most Israeli Jews are good people, it shouldn't surprise us that some people who have been persecuted become persecutors. After all, we now know that many parents become child abusers because they themselves were abused as children. Moreover, "religious" persecution is also a big part of history, and in many cases those who were persecuted become persecutors.

One of America's greatest founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, commented on that in an essay on "Toleration" in which he pointed out persecution of and by Christians. He wrote: "If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The original Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. (The Puritans) found it wrong in the Bishops (of the Church of England), but fell into the same practice themselves in New England (in America)."

The hard-line Israeli Zionists have also become persecutors. But, they, of course, don't see it that way. They feel that any and all use of armed force, and even violence, death and destruction is justified and necessary to control Palestinians and exact revenge on murderous terrorists who attack Israelis. The trouble is, the Israelis created the problem in the first place, and they have often over-reacted and gone way beyond "an eye for an eye" retaliation when attacked by those they have offended. They compound and escalate the violence. They have resorted to offensive invasions and occupation, not only of Palestinian lands, but also of their neighbor Lebanon, and they have destroyed much of Lebanon's infrastructure more than once. To the Israelis, a legitimate target is any location and any dwelling or any vehicle in any country that may contain a suspected terrorist. The Israeli government has acted as if any collateral damage or death of innocent men, women and children, and any destruction of homes and buildings and infrastructure, is a legitimate consequence of the war on terrorism. They either don't understand or deny that it has been their actions that have created and motivated the terrorists.

The Israelis feel they are only doing what absolutely must be done, because they feel that the return to their ancient homeland and the establishment of the modern Jewish state was the fulfillment of prophecy and their destiny. They fight to ensure it, maintain it, and even continually expand it, and they feel it is a fight that they must win at any cost.

Therefore, it is important for all of us to understand that this idea of Jewish "return" (called Zionism) stems from the fact that many of their distant Jewish ancestors were forced to leave their ancient homeland almost two thousand years ago in the great "Diaspora" (dispersion) beginning in AD 73, following a crushing Roman response to a series of Jewish uprisings against Roman imperialism and occupation. That was when millions of Jews began to leave the Middle East and scattered to various European countries, leaving only a relative few Jews remaining in the area. Those Jews that remained were reduced to the status of a subject people in Palestine, which would be fought over and ruled in turn by the Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Arabs, Christian Crusaders, Turks, and British.

Zionism, the movement for the return of Jews to their ancient homeland, has been in the mind of many Jews ever since the Diaspora. It was a long-held dream that actually began to be fulfilled back in the late 1800s, when some European Jews immigrated to Palestine. It then significantly increased in 1917, near the end of World War I, and that's when it really began to negatively affect the Palestinians. In fact, that's when certain things happened that have bothered Palestinians ever since.

In 1917 the Palestinians (the indigenous people of Palestine) fought to defeat the Turks who then occupied Palestine, as was portrayed in the great classic movie, Lawrence of Arabia. That war ended the Turkish occupation and rule, but it didn't help the Palestinians as they thought it would. You see, the Palestinians had been united under the leadership of a British officer (Lawrence), and in spite of the fact that it was the Palestinians who won the victory over the Turks, the British took the opportunity to establish their own rule over Palestine and they simply ignored Lawrence's alliance with the Palestinians. Not only that, the British then began to lend support to a very small population of Jews, most of whom had immigrated to Palestine from Europe.

That was a crucial turn of events, because it opened the door wide to more Jewish immigration from Europe and America, and it naturally caused the Palestinians to feel deeply betrayed. After all, it was the Palestinians who actually fought the battles and won the war against the Turks, and the Palestinians had therefore believed and rightfully expected that Palestine would naturally pass to them! They had believed that they were fighting for their homeland, and when they won it, they naturally assumed that they would be able to govern themselves and determine their own destiny. They had not expected the British to take over and rule them.

It added further insult to injury when, after the British established their own rule and jurisdiction in Palestine, they gave official recognition to the Jewish Zionist cause. That was in the Balfour Declaration, which served to legitimize the idea of creating a new Jewish State and officially allowed increased Jewish immigration. That further betrayed the Palestinians, and the betrayal didn't stop there because that declaration contained provisions that were then not honored by the British or the Israelis. In fact, that has been a continuing betrayal, because those provisions were supposed to protect Palestinian rights, stipulating that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil or religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

Considering that, the Palestinians understandably felt betrayed. They feel justified in their belief that the modern State of Israel is built upon a foundation that was undermined and damaged by the Israelis themselves. As the Palestinians see it, the British takeover of Palestine was unfair. They feel that the denial of the Palestinians' rightful claim to Palestine was unfair, that the Balfour Declaration was unfair, and that the Israeli treatment of Palestinians was and has been in defiance and non-compliance with the one part of that declaration intended to protect Palestinian civil rights. And they feel that the ultimate unfairness has been the continual Jewish takeover and occupation of Palestinian homes and land, which had increased since 1917, was greatly expanded in 1948 when the modern State of Israel was established, and has continued ever since.

So, the Palestinians felt betrayed first by the British, then by the Israelis, and then later by the Americans, who have funded, supported, and armed the Israelis ever since 1948. That is a significant part of the reason for Palestinian resentment, discontent, and anger toward Israel and the United States.

This resentment is very understandable, especially when you consider the long range impact that British-Israeli-American actions have had on Palestinians. Their natural and justifiable claims to their homeland have been denied, and their plight has increased commensurate to the ever-increasing number of arriving Jewish immigrants ever since 1917. Hundreds of thousands of Jews immigrated from Europe and America to Palestine following the Balfour Declaration of 1917. In 1937 the Zionists organized further immigration of Jews. Another 12,000 arrived before World War II, and the tide increased until 1939, when Britain finally tried to limit the Jewish immigration and stated officially that it was not England's aim, after all, to turn Palestine into a Jewish state. But it was too late. Immigration continued anyway, illegally, and the consequence was that gradually, as more and more Jews moved in, more and more Palestinians were dislocated, removed from their homes, and forced to become refugees.

Not too much later, at the end of the World War II, Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Germany caused pressure on Britain to allow even more Jewish immigration to Palestine. Then, to add to the pressure, the United States stepped in and strongly backed that campaign. The British tried to prevent more immigration, so Jewish Zionists launched a terror campaign in Palestine against occupying British troops. The situation became so bad that in 1947 the United Nations recommended partitioning Palestine into two separate states. That, however, triggered a civil war between the Palestinians and the Jews, and when the British finally withdrew in 1948 when the new State of Israel was established, the dispute was still unresolved and still raging.

That war has been raging sporadically ever since. But all the battles have been won militarily by the Israelis, since they have been backed and supported by American wealth and armed with modern American weapons, including jet fighter planes, helicopter gun ships, and tanks. In fact, it is because of that American support and military capability that Israelis have been able to capture a lot more land and gain military control over the whole area during the last 59 years.

For example, in 1967 a "six day war" broke out between Israel and Egypt, and soon Jordan, Syria, and Iraq were also involved. However, the Israelis were so heavily armed by that point that they were able to take advantage of the opportunity and capture all of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank in a matter of days. Then Israel turned to the Syrian front, stormed the Golan Heights, and then declared all of Jerusalem united under Israel.

This caused enormous frustration for all Arabs, especially Palestinians, and that frustration and outrage manifested in some horrible ways. In 1972 during the Munich Olympic Games, a Palestinian guerrilla group killed two Israelis and took nine hostages. This was one of the earliest signs of coming terrorist activity by those who felt they had no choice in the face of Israeli (American) military might. And this feeling only increased in 1973, after Egypt and Syria launched a military offensive to try to reverse some of the Israeli gains, because Israeli forces quickly inflicted crushing defeats to both Egyptian and Syrian forces in what is now known as the Yom Kippur War.

Palestinians have fought back whenever and however they could. But they couldn't possibly fight conventionally against such overwhelming odds. That's why they have been so frustrated and indignant, and why some of them have resorted to (and stooped to) terrorist tactics. That is certainly not to excuse or condone it, because there is absolutely no excuse for killing innocent civilians and women and children. However, it is a little more understandable if you understand the history and put yourself in the shoes of Palestinians. As one thwarted and captured Palestinian who intended to be a suicide bomber has said, "After my whole family was killed by the Israelis, I only wanted to die and take as many Israelis as possible with me." While we cannot and must not condone such actions, we can at least understand how people are reduced to such a miserable, hopeless, and furious state of mind.

We should also understand that there is another reason why the plight of the Palestinians has steadily worsened over time. Since the early eighties the population of right-wing Fundamentalist Orthodox Jews in Israel has grown considerably. Some of them are as intolerant, proud and militant as the Christian Right in America, and they are particularly intolerant of and offensive toward Palestinians. To make the situation worse, while most Jews utilize reasonable family planning like most Europeans and Americans, Orthodox Jews have as many children as they possibly can. Consequently, they are quickly on their way to becoming the majority population in Israel. This does not bode well for Israel, because some Orthodox Jews are zealots who tend to be not only proud and militant, but also sanctimonious, bigoted and self-righteous, just like most people on the "Religious Right" around the world. Yet, in spite of the fact that they are the most militant and provoke the most violence, they have somehow managed to become exempt from military service. So they are a very huge problem for Israel. In fact, it could be said that they are a bigger problem for Israel than the Christian Right is for America.

This is really too bad, because the former majority of Jewish people in Israel are peace-loving, good people. They are like the majority of the real Christians in the U.S. who recognize the value and necessity of a secular government and separation of church and state, and don't try to use their religion for political advantage or use the pulpit for partisan political grandstanding cloaked as "religious" righteousness. Many good Israelis are as much against the militant Israeli hardliners as they are against the militant Palestinian hardliners. They are sick and tired of war, even though most of them are too young to remember how it all started. They may not even be aware that the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is simply a continuation of what began a very long time ago.

Now it is important that everyone knows about Israeli offenses and Israeli "iniquity." We should all know about the assassins and death squads, because Israel adopted the practice of "targeted assassinations" a long time ago.

It started following the 1972 Olympics in Munich (where those 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian guerillas). At that time Israel decided to not even try to have the perpetrators and conspirators arrested and tried in courts. The Israeli government preferred to launch a systematic campaign of assassinations that effectively got rid of all those they judged as guilty for the Munich murders, and they managed to exact revenge no matter where the targets were in the world. They didn't stop there either. They continued the practice of targeted assassinations, killing a broad range of Palestinians judged to be enemies of Israel. This has been kept secret from the general public until fairly recently, and while some Israelis feel the practice was and is justified, it ought to horrify everyone who values true justice and the rule of law. Like the American CIA practice of assassination, it ought to be foregone and relegated to disgraceful pages of history.

Unfortunately, it is still practiced by the Israelis. In fact, the current conflict is continually escalated by retaliatory violence and killing. It's become difficult to keep track of the order, but Palestinian attacks or suicide bombings are always followed by Israeli attacks, invasions and incursions, and even by targeted assassinations and killing of Palestinians, many of which are done covertly. The Israelis under the leadership of Ariel Sharon and then Ehud Olmert have consistently and continually used a heavier hand (or iron fist), wielding disproportionate use of deadly force, thus pouring more fuel on the flames of conflict and ensured an increase in the cycle of retaliatory violence by widening the area of violence and destruction. The effect has been only to strengthen the resolve of Palestinian extremists and weaken Palestinian moderates.

It is generally known that the Second Muslim Intifada, the latest round of violence, began in September 2000, when Israeli Ariel Sharon blatantly insulted Palestinians and provoked the Palestinians. But, since Americans have not been informed of how unjustly and unfairly Palestinians have been treated, they should know of some notable prior examples of Israeli offenses.

In 1953 an Israeli military unit led by Ariel Sharon was responsible for the mass slaughter of Palestinian refugee inhabitants of Qibya, a village in the then-Jordanian West Bank. In the war in 1967 Israel took even more land by force, and following that there was a particularly brutal enforcement of the Israeli occupation in Gaza, led by Sharon. Then in 1982 Sharon led an illegal military invasion and intrusion into Lebanon and was responsible for the massacre of many Palestinians, particularly in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon.

Palestinian suffering due to the abuse of Israeli military power then increased over the years, and it markedly increased due to Sharon's actions before and after he became Prime Minister of Israel. Then he was responsible for many more targeted assassinations of Palestinian leaders, and the bulldozing of thousands of Palestinian homes, orchards, and other property.

It should be noted that in June 8, 1967, just a few hours after the Israeli military captured Jerusalem's Temple Mount, then Defense Minister Moshe Dayan visited the site and noticing that his troops had hung an Israeli flag on the top of the Al-Aqsa Muslim Shrine. Dayan told the soldiers to remove it, because he felt that it was a blatantly provocative act. Ariel Sharon's highly publicized and very provocative act of visiting the Al-Aqsa compound in September 2000 was the final step in a process that ultimately negated Dayan's strategic legacy of trying to normalize the occupation by concealing Israel's presence. While Dayan had once said, "Don't rule them, let them lead their own lives," Sharon wanted to rule with an iron fist. Sharon not provoked the second Muslim Intifada against Israel, he ended the peace efforts made by all the peacemakers of the world. And since then the Israeli government has defiantly displayed their flag anywhere possible, as if thumbing their nose at Palestinians. And their tactics of enforcing the occupation got meaner and not only more deadly, but more destructive.

For example, during the first two decades following the 1967 War, an estimated 650 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But, during the six-year period between 2001 and 2007, Israel has, on average, killed more than 650 Palestinians per year. Moreover, during the first three years of the second Intifada Israel destroyed more than ten percent of Gaza's agricultural land and uprooted over 226,000 trees.

Most Americans don't know it, but, as of October 2004 (according to a report presented before the U.N. Security Council) the number of Palestinians killed by Israelis since the beginning of the Intifada in September 2000 to 2006 was 3,839, including nearly a thousand children, and an estimated 36,433 Palestinians had been injured. During the same time, only 979 Israelis were killed, and 6,297 were wounded. In those four years not only did Palestinians suffer four times as many deaths as Israelis, thousands of Palestinian homes had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair in the Gaza Strip. More than 120,000 parcels of Palestinian land had been confiscated for colonial Israeli expansion, "settlement" activities, occupation activities, and the construction of Sharon's imposing Segregation Wall, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian trees were uprooted in various Israeli military activities. All this while America and the rest of the world simply watched and did nothing.

Another report by the BBC stated that between September 2000 and January 2005 there were 181 Palestinians killed by Israelis just in the covert, extrajudicial executions or targeted assassinations, and in the course of those assassinations 288 more Palestinians, including at least 29 children under age 18, were killed "inadvertently." And in the Summer of 2006 the violence and horrible offenses increased again, following the brutally offensive and murderous Israeli hard-line policies. Another invasion of Lebanon and the destruction of much of its infrastructure caused even more outrage, and the offenses have continued ever since.

Of course, Palestinian extremists are just as wrong, but it is Israel's offenses and disproportionate use of deadly force and destruction that are the most outrageous and inflaming. That is what fueled the backing, support and activities of Hamas, which is dedicated to fighting Israel.

There is nothing wrong with there being a State of Israel. It can have its place. But the U.S. created a bully in the State of Israel with all the financial and military support of the Israeli government since 1948, pouring in billions of dollars a year so Israel could create and maintain superior military might. That has been and still is the problem. And it will be a problem until the people of the world finally say, "Enough." The Palestinians deserve to have their grievances addressed, and the U.N. needs to step in to stop the violence and establish justice.

As the late great Martin Luther King Jr. said: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness, in a descending spiral of destruction."

The people of the world need to act to stop the madness.