There are a hundred thousand Muslims who believe and preach the same thing, in reverse. And quite a few of them seem hell bent on proving it.

While I didn't know the details, I knew a an expulsion of Palestines by force had taken place. I'm continually saddened and disappointed that my government, the US government, backs a policy where one Israeli life is worth many Palestinian lives.

Worse yet, Bush seems to have adopted the Israeli model in his so-called "War on Terror". He engages in or encourages continual moral outrages like Abu Ghraib and Gitmo that will only infuriate the other side and sully ourselves in the process. The result will likely be the same endless conflict of our own making that Israel faces. Though a war without end suits Bush and his Republican ilk just fine as the half-life of any faux values issue like gay marriage is short and keeping the populace afraid is the only way for them to stay in power long term.

Yes, the Palestinians were treated horribly. The great loss of life is a tragedy that is hard to match.

However it was 50 years ago. Many groups have endured the same or worse and moved on. If the Palestinians want to stop starving, stop the bombings and stop the useless deaths they need to stop encouraging terrorism, stop the corruption in their government, and stop waving the right of return papers and move on. It is not fair, but it is life.

If I were the kidnapped solder then I would be very encouraged to know that the entire country was willing to go to extreme measures to ensure that I would not be forgotten and was ready, willing, and able to apply seriously heavy pressure on my kidnappers to effect my return to friends and family.

God help me that I'm not an American who gets kidnapped in the Middle East. I would be instantly forgotten by the masses upon the next press release about some Hollywood star's genitals. Then my fate would be in the hands of incompetent fanatics (both my kidnappers and the US government). I'd end up with my beheadment video on some madman's website for the enjoyment of criminals everywhere.

Thank god for this unfortunate young man that his country really cares about him!

"…That the world sees the life of an Arab as infinitely less valuable than that of an Israeli; that no amount of suffering by innocent Palestinians is too much to justify the return of a single Jewish soldier."

By this reasoning, do the Palestinian leadership (Hamas) share the same viewpoint? After all, they can end the Israeli attacks by releasing the soldier.

This is not a case (as Israel publicly claims) of a terrorist group attacking the armed forces of an occupying nation. This is the armed forces of one nation-state –Palestine - attacking and kidnapping a soldier of another state –Israel – on Israeli territories. That is an act of war. Of course they have been at war more or less for a while. But consider, if Mexico or Canada started to kidnap American soldiers, what would America do? Most probably take a response similar to Israel’s. And many innocent civilians would suffer the consequences.

My point here is that Hamas, which has proclaimed the objective of wiping out the State of Israel (and therefore, in many Israeli’s minds, the objective is to wipe out the Jews), has rejected any path towards peace. They made a direct attack on Israel’s military. Yet you wonder why the world does not speak out against Israel?

Shame on Israel! How was that honoring their own dead by creating a new generation of lost children in another beleaugured nation of peoples? Why do we only seem to care about the Israelis in this conflict? Is it because we are racist towards all Arabs and therefore cannot show compassion to their suffering? I feel sympathy for the innocent Israelis who have been caught up in this protracted struggle, but please let us not forget the many more victims on the Palestinian side. I abhor suicide bombing as it is murder of civilians and Hamas is nothing but a terrorist organization, but I recognize that for Palestinians this is the result of many years of their plight being ignored by the civilized world. I cannot condone their desperate actions, but I can sympathize with the pain that has brought them to this low.

Thank you so much for this article. It provided context and information often banished from mainstream US press. While one may find readers and citizens who know much of this background in the UK or in Tel Aviv (both BBC and Ha'aretz actually can cover some facts without fear of irrational attacks from AIPAC), reading about the crisis from a human perspective rather than an ideological one can come as quite a shock for US audiences. Bravo.

Soren Bergeson

But the truly just resolution to the Holocaust would have been to carve out a nice, juicy chunk of the nicest part of Germany and to create Israel there. Dispossessing Germans who had either participated in, or turned a deaf/blind ear/eye to what the Nazis were doing would have had a real sense of justice to it. Throwing the Palestinians off their land was like finding a whipping boy rather than punishing the true villains.

In 1948 a great number of Jews lost their Goods and Lands in the Arab countries of the Middle East! They were driven out of these countries, at the "birth" of Israel. They lost houses, lands,farms, and businesses in all the Countries of the Middle East. These Jews had to flee to Israel to stay alive. WHEN DO THEY GET THEIR LAND BACK?

Where is the right of return for all the Jews of the World?

A similar number of Arabs lost land in Israel in 1948. The "al-Nakba" tragedy is that they were never accepted anywhere else. JEWS ACCEPTED AND WELCOMED JEWS IN ISRAEL! ARAB RESIDENTS OF GAZA AND ISRAEL WERE NEVER ACCEPTED OR WELCOMED BY ANYONE! They were abandoned by their own. There is a "Palestine" and it is called Jordan.

If the Palestinians laid down their arms and go back to work in Israel,,,,there will be PEACE!!! If the Israelis lay down their arms...there will be millions more dead Jews in a slaughter that will make Hitler look like a saint. Oh sorry, many of you think that he was a saint.....

Israel is vastly outnumbered, Israel has less than 1% of the land in the Middle East, and Israel has no Oil! How with a straight face can anyone claim that Israel is the source of all the problems in the Middle East and some say the whole world?

Arabs control a large percentage of the Oil and wealth in the world today! They have gold Rolls Royces and hockey rinks in the deserts of the Middle East. THERE IS ENOUGH ARAB MONEY FOR ANY AND ALL ARABS TO BE RICH! Why should the Jews be charged with taking care of a people who will kill them any chance they get?

The cry is for the Jews to get over the wrongs done them in the last century! If the holacaust never happened then neither did the "al-Nakba" !!!