Couldn't agree with you more. I think blaming the WTC on the settlements is simplistic, but US support for Israel, coupled with Israels treatment of the Palestinians, was certainly a factor. I don't know if the US support would have been as much of a problem if the Palestinians were treated as humans.

A factor which is forgotten is that Islam is the religion of the women from birth, too. The women who are interviewed for news programs are generally in big cities, and speak English. Outside the big cities they do not feel particularly oppressed.

Since we were raised as we have been since birth, their way of life in some ways seems as alien as ours does to them. Just as we can't always judge the actions in the past by the standards of today, we can't always assume a woman in the Middle East is going to judge her culture the way a western woman would if suddenly plunked down there.

Some rigid Islamic practices are so cruel and unusual, so barbaric, that I have trouble always accepting their culture. They live with it, though.

Arf