Writing from point blank(Mt. Scopus on the border of east jerusalem) maybe i can add some illumination...

If we really want to assign blame the best people to blame is probably the British, they really did fuck over this entire area and promised a state to both the palestinians and the zionists. From 1948-1967 the Jewish State was barely half the size of what it currently is, and jerusalem was not an open city. The Western Wall was almost completely blocked by houses and left in disarray, and was not half of what it has become today. In 1967 the Arab nations attempted to crush the Israelis once and for all and fullfill their promise of pushing the jews into the ocean. However, thanks to intelligence reports, the outnumbered Israelis not only held their own but decimated the arab forces in 6 days, which is when they conquered the Sinai, West Bank, and Golan Heights. The next big conflict came in 1973, when the arab nations again attacked the Israelis, this time on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the entire year to Jews. The Israelis again won, but this time continued pushing on after they had repulsed the arabs, which began the world backlash against the Israelis(before 1973 sentiment world-wide was mostly pro-Israel). In 1978 Sinai was returned to the egyptians, and that border has been pretty stable. The Border to Syria in the golan is also rather stable despite the fact that the two countries are at war with eachother. The next big event was the intifada, the Palestinian Youth uprising, after which the world finally became cognizant of the plight of the Palestinian people, and since then has been the continued broken peace treaties and so on. I know this account is Israel-biased, and I apologize, it's not intended to be that, but I am an American Jew currently in Israel and it comes out that way.

But fact is, both sides are completely dead wrong in this issue, and neither has more of a right to this land. It's useless to say the Arabs were here first, or the Jews were, because both have incredibly strong historical ties to the land. If you want to be exact I guess you could say the Jebusites and Canaanites and such were here first before the israeli forces led by Joshua conquered the land back in biblical time, but I'm not willing to use biblical sources to mediate current disputes. The fact is that the Jews were the original inhabitants of this land before they were forced out twice, first around 450 B.C.E. by the palestinians and then after the destruction of the second temple by the romans, after which Palestine severely declined as a center of Jewish life. However, if the Jews were there first, the Arabs were there longer and more current, and had inhabited the land for over a 1000 years including holding Jerusalem for many of those, even when they were conquered peoples living under the Ottoman turks for most of that.

On top of that both sides have committed unspeakable atrocities in the past and if there's any justice will both face severe penalties for this latest bout. It is easy to blame Sharon as instigator in this, but then it comes out that before he even stepped foot on the mount the Palestinians had stockpiled stones and had been urged on to exterminate the Jews. However, it was still an incredibly provocative act, but the Arab reaction has been beyond all reasonable bounds. Then on top of that, the Israeli response has used ridiculous amounts of force. For every arab rock, the israelis shoot more and hurt more, and for every arab hurt another rock is thrown and more bullets are shot and it just gets worse. Quickly on Sharon, he is a butcher, an unspeakably evil man, and hopefully the moderates can distance themselves from him on both sides.

There doesn't seem to be any easy end to this current uprising, it just keeps escalating. I took the first bus this morning to tel-aviv because I was honestly beginning to fear for my safety in Jerusalem. I have packed enough so that I can fly home if need be, although I am first headed to Prague for a four-day vacation, and hopefully after that it will calm significantly, although Yom Kippur could be another incredibly dangerous day...the arabs used it to their advantage 27 years ago and I wouldn't be surprised if they do it again. My friend Larry works for seeds of peace in jerusalem, an international organization which creates dialogue between palestinian and jewish teenagers, among other conflicted groups, and attempts to start peace from there. However, in these past days he has been forced to talk to a child who had been laying on the floor for 8 hours because he was scared to stand up, another whose neighbor's house got run over by a tank while they spoke, another who's family was killed in a house explosion, and one more who died. It was on his urging that I evacuated Jerusalem, and I am so thankful that I actually have the ability to do so.

One more thing then I'll shut up, the myth is that Jews and Arabs have never been able to get along. This is completely untrue. Christians have had far more antipathy shared with both of these groups than they have with each other. Throughout much of history Jews were treated well under the arabs as conquered people. For Example, the Jews lived in spain for many prosperous years under muslim rule and didn't have to leave until the Jesuits took over and began the inquisition.

For a long time now I have believed there will never be peace in the Middle East. Not because Arabs and Israelis will never agree, but because extremists exist on both sides and are unable to agree with either the moderates on their side or the other side. No one has any idea how long this will last over here either, we're just praying for a quick resolution. But this is a problem that goes way beyond blame games. There have been broken treaties on both sides and atrocities on both. As long as Hamas blows up innocent buses and Israel fires anti-tank missles at houses, as long as Israelis have blatant racism towards their neighbors or an arab can say to my german friend "you guys really know how to handle the Jews", this isn't ending.

DMC

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