Walk in their shoes

It's the Israeli occupation that's at the root of the Middle East problem. Put yourself in the Palestinians' situation for a moment. Walk in their shoes with me. For more than 40 years you've been occupied by a foreign power with the most powerful military in the region. They seize your country, move in hundreds of thousands of heavily armed settlers, and pen you up either in squalid refugee camps or poverty-stricken cities and villages separated by roadblocks and patrolled by their military with tanks and machine guns.

When they want more of your land, they just take it and there's nothing you can do about it. If you build a new house where they don't like it, they'll just bulldoze it with barely enough warning for you to get out before it comes tumbling down. If they want to cut off your meager drinking water supply so they have more water for their lawns and swimming pools, they can do it. If you demonstrate against these injustices, even doing as little as throwing rocks, you may get shot and maimed or killed. If you get sick and need to go to the hospital, that's too bad. Pregnant and about to deliver? That's tough. In fact, they may tear down your clinic or use your hospital for target practice. Got kids who need an education? Forget about it. Even if they let the school open, you couldn't afford it anyway, since you have no money, no job and very little food.

Ted Rudow III, MA
Palo Alto, CA, USA