The tsunami of vilification, rhymed, or unrhymed, the name-calling, and the venom flowing from all sides and directions in this thread is beyond description. So why am I reading it? It's like watching a multi-car pileup in slow-motion...I don't want to look but it's very hard to turn away. And it may have direct consequences for me.

I'm an American Jew, turned atheist, proud of my ethnic heritage (which is more Yiddish than Hebrew -- my people are from the Russian Empire), and horrified by the turn Israeli politics has taken (and have no brief for Orthodox fundamentalist setttlers --if I saw Meir Kahane thumbing a ride I would probably run him over ---any more than our home-grown kind). But I'm old enough (call me Scared Grandpa) to remember what is felt like, as an 8-year old, to be learning to read just as reports on the Holocaust were coming out. As a life-long classical musician whose most revered composers were almost all German, I spent years of reading and questioning trying to understand how Beethoven and Hitler could come from the same stock..and I still don't really get it.

In the course of my searching, I learned a lot about the history of Jew-hating. I make a distinction between Jew-hating (snide comments about money-grubbing, restrictive residential covenants, etc.) and antisemitism, which was racial (as opposed to religious), began in 19th-century France, and ended logically in death-camps (by the way, which in the East were staffed largely by natives --- Lithuanians, Ukrainians, etc. while overseen by Germans). I understand Scared Grandma's reaction --- it is just too easy to make the transition Israeli=Jew= subhuman parasitical world conspirator (BTW, that famous forgery "The Protocols of Zion" is widely read and believed in the Arab world). If you look at the rhetoric of the rejectionists going back almost a hundred years, coupled with the reality of the Holocaust (Israel was founded and led by survivors and those who had lost entire families)you can understand the extreme reaction, even as you abhor the results. I also understand the reaction of terrified Gazans who only want to live their lives who are caught between the extremists on both sides.

Without expecting anyone to pay the slightest attention, might I humbly suggest that everybody pipe down a bit, and that those who seem to have come into the argument lately (especially the younger folk --- I know this sounds condescending and I apologize for that but I can't find a better way to say it) do some delving into the actual history, not the tub-thumping propaganda of Leon Uris' "Exodus" or the scarcely disguised Hitler-worship of David Irving.

If I may, I recommend "Constantine's Sword" by James Carroll, BTW a devout Roman Catholic of Irish descent for a general history going back to the earliest days, "The Siege", by Conor Cruse O'Brien, another Irishman (NB maureenodonnell, where are you?), for the more recent history, and "The Tragedy of Zionism" by Bernard Avishai, an American Jew who has lived in Israel and while understanding the experiences which produced the actions of Likud, is highly critical of it.

Unless there is some commonly accepted set of facts to discuss, all we will have is name-calling and vitriol, and that can translate into real violence ---especially in such hard times as we are likely to be having for a good while --- faster than anyone can believe. And if that happens, I have no illusions as to who would wind up dead. Given the historical record (extending back long before the Holocaust and not exempting the US --- does the name Charles Coughlin ring any bells? --- try googling it) that seems not an entirely unreasonable fear.

But maybe that is what some of you want, which is why I asked the question of what anyone would do if they had the power to dictate a solution.