Initial Thoughts

Coming from a position of complete ignorance, I have tried to educate myself on the problems in the Middle East.

I started by reading Peter Rodgers book "Hertzl's Nightmare - One Land Two Peoples". Then I read Tanya Reinhart's book "Israel/Palestine - "How to End the War of 1948". I have recently seen the play "My Name is Rachel Corrie" and now am finishing Antony Loewenstein's book "My Israel Question". Probably by this time, the reader can see where my sympathies lie.You might be saying that the literature that I'm reading is leading me to a certain side. However, I do read newspapers as well and these are all have their own biases.

As far as I can see there are certain indisputable facts:

1. The Palestinians lived on the land in question first and had lived there for generations
2. The Israelis have now taken over a great deal of this land and are still encroaching on it with their settlements
3. The Israelis get a huge amount of aid from the USA. From 1990 to 2000, the USA gave more than $18 billion in military aid to Israel
4. The Israelis have nuclear weapons

With these few facts (surely no one will dispute them) can you see who is the underdog in this play? Now when I read the newspapers, I can see the bias. One small slap on the wrist when the Israelis build their wall, IDF bulldozers flatten houses, shoot into Palestinian territories killing civilians and then all hell breaks loose when there is a suicide bombing killing some civilians in a marketplace. It's David and Goliath but in this case Goliath is winning.