A Synopsis of the Israel/Palestine Conflict


Personally, I’ve never been to the Middle East, and much less traveled about and talked to the people there, to see what their thoughts are and how they feel about the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All I know is what I read in the papers and other printed media, and through news coverage, like everybody else. I figure it’s a good way to be informed, but carries the risk of being slanted one way or the other.

However, I did come across this site, which intends to explain the conflict in an objective manner, and more important… was founded by a news journalist who has been in the Middle East and walked among its people. So I figure she’s more qualified to give opinions about both sides than I am. Then of course the skeptic in me wanted to know whether her own opinion was slanted. Maybe she was born of Arab ancestry, or has something in her past that would cause her to harbor a dislike for Jews. So I looked a bit into her bio, and found nothing to suggest that. She seems a level-headed, intelligent, probing, inquisitive person… who is interested in knowing all the facts and sharing them with the rest of the American people.

Education is a good thing. I still shake my head at the National Geographic study some years ago, which found an extremely poor knowledge among today’s young people of some important subjects, but most notable geography. I remember the U.S. did very poorly when compared against other countries. This and other studies seem to have lit a bit of a fire under the U.S. consciousness, and prompted politicians to pay more attention to the educational needs of Americans.

But one needs to be careful with traditional education. Geometry and calculus books are surely the same in the U.S. as in any other country, save the language. But the principles are universal. History books are another matter. It depends who is telling the story. A lot of well-educated, very opinionated people have read the history books in their particular country. These books carry the stories that the particular culture wants to portray. The facts are all there… but the underlying factors might differ from one culture to the other.

But back to the Middle East. Ms. Weir, of not any known Arab descent or marital status, has traveled through these troubled regions, and seen things first hand. She has seen enough and learned enough to warrant founding a nonpartisan organization with the sole purpose of informing the general public of how things really are. For that she is to be commended.

The ideal thing, I think, is to be both intelligent AND open-minded. In the sense that you can say, “You know… I hadn’t thought of it that way before. Maybe… just maybe… I may have been wrong about certain things.”

All this being said, it’s heartening to read that many Palestinians are in favor of a peaceful, two-state solution… and are only too willing to sit down at the bargaining table and bring about solutions that acceptable to both.