Israel

Dear Victorious,

What do you think of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians? Is Israel right to behave the way it does?

Norman P. - Denver, CO

Dear Norman,

It's a big question. But in my gut I guess the answer is that I think both sides have behaved pretty badly. It's hard to keep score of the atrocities. Certainly the Palestinians have been wrong with the terrorism that they continue to unleash in the region. But at the same time, Israel seems to have an in-your-face attitude, pushing settlements into Palestinian territory.

I suspect they're both victims of failed state planning. I'm not a historian or an expert on Jewish history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel), but here's how I understand things.

The Jews sinned against God and He punished them for it (see the Old Testament) - driving them out of their own land. Over the centuries the Jews were a scattered group - but longed to return to Israel. In the meantime, the Palestinians (people whom God had told the Jews to kill off) took over the land. In the 1940's global powers decided to "give" Israel back to the Jews. Of course, the only way that they could do that was was to take it away from the Palestinians. And the battle has been ongoing ever since.

Were the Palestinians wronged? I suspect they were. Do the Jews have an inherent, God-given right to occupy the land? I don't know. But I notice that it was God who punished them with captivity and scattering. So I suspect their rights aren't as we might like to think. Don't get me wrong, I'm sorry for the suffering the Jews have endured over the centuries. But I'm also a firm believer in the notion that two wrongs don't make a right. Similarly, dozens of wrongs don't make anything right either.

It appears to me that both sides (of the Israel conflicts) are more focused on being right than on doing right. And until that changes, I doubt there will ever be peace in Israel.