It's a useless task, alcaray. There are two interdependent factors operating which makes it impossible for this generation to see this struggle realistically.

For the record, the Palestinians, who owned the land so cavalierly given away by the UN, have been savage. The Israelis have been more savage.

The Israeli lobby is so very strong in the US, backed by fundamental Christians, that anything which shows the Palestinian side is branded anti-Semitic, boycotts threatened, funds cancelled. That has been going on for generations, leaving the Palestinian story untold. (The children on these boards insist upon calling me anti-Semetic in spite of the Jewish person who used to post here assuring them I am not.)

The second story is that people are unwilling to question, let alone change, the beliefs acquired in childhood and adolescence. We settle into the idea that the US is all-powerful, generous, charitable, kind and selflessly assists other countries at every turn.

And the hostility we receive in return is the result of crazy people who hate freedom and democracy, envy the US way of life.

It's very hard to change those beliefs, and as we've seen here, they don't change in most people even in the face of the most damning evidence. It helps if one has seen the US operate overseas, has been away from the domestic media, and comes to realize people want the same things everywhere.

But the attitudes around here are pretty well set. I've come to feel sorry for most of the folks, doomed as they are to believe the way wiser minds have programmed them from infancy.

Arf