There has not been much discussion here of events in the middle east. There is not much hope of discussion as positions are deeply entrenched. I have been thinking what a monumental irony it is that a religious group who was so oppressed so brutally in recent history, inflicts the same treatment in kind on another. Schools, hospitals, universities, and homes reduced to rubble, while food, water, and medical supplies are withheld from 1.5 million displaced refugees, crowded into the last corner of their walled prison. Truly an irony beyond belief.

But further, these Palestinians are actually descendants of biblical Jews. Mohamed lived around 500 AD, and Suleiman converted the biblical Jews to Islam around 1500 AD. There are no people who have a more legitimate right to live in historic Palestine than the Palestinians.

I don't understand the grotesque expedience that leads my government to support and spend my tax dollars in the extermination of a native population. It is so clearly a colonial apartheid and genocide. South Africa and Ireland recognize it clearly, having lived through it, and speak out loudly to the world community.

Where are we, the safeguards of freedom and justice, in all this?