So I've been getting more and more angered by the whole Israel-Palestine thing. I haven't exactly been neutral on it for years and years, and I let out a little 'uh-oh' when Sharon was elected Prime Minister of Israel, but of course the latest events in the region have brought the whole subject, and the thoughts it engenders, even more into my mind.

So I'm going to try to outline where I stand, perhaps explain what I think is going on, and expound on why it is I've turned so squarely against the Israeli government. Where my facts are wrong, please correct me. Where my opinions are wrong, argue ... sensibly. In other words, make good points, don't just call me a traitorous terrorist-lover; few things could be further from the truth.

Going back to 1948, we see the state of Israel carved out of most of the up-to-them British colony of Palestine. For giving up most of their country, the Palestinians got to keep a little bit of land and got the British government's hands of its affairs. Not exactly the greatest deal in history, but not the worst, either. Understandably, there were a number of Palestinian people, and Arabic neighbors of the new country, who were none too pleased about the new arrangement. The Israeli government needed to defend itself, and fast.

Consequently, they turned themselves into a bit of a military state, and had to defend themselves pretty fiercely for a number of years, with the help of the UN, the US and other (mostly Western) allies. Then comes 1967. Feeling threatened by Palestinian nationalism and continuing feelings by their Arab neighbors that pretty much everyone got shafted in the deal except the mostly-immigrant Jews, Israel decides on a little war. A short one.

They decided that the rest of the real estate, that the Palestinians got, they wanted, too. Realistically, they felt that there was a continued threat of revolution and terrorism emanating from those areas (and southern Lebanon, too, where Palestinian nationalists were taking advantage of the civil unrest and anarchy to shield themselves from the Israeli government) and so they invaded. Nice.

Rather than making plans to clean house, so to speak, and hand the land back to the people to whom it belonged, they started to set up shop there, populating towns and settlements in an effort basically to claim a homeland stake that wasn't theirs to seize in the first place. I'm reminded of similarities in Irish history that led to the past and present conflicts in Northern Ireland; maybe I'll get into those another time.

Suspending judgment for a moment, place yourselves in the shoes of your average Palestinian citizen. You feel at least some identification with others of your race, nationality and faith. You were promised something in return for letting the new guy move in next door. The new guy moves in and takes it away from you. What do you feel?

You feel like you want your stuff back, and possibly even the house you let the guy move into in the first place, just cos you kinda feel like their end of the bargain wasn't upheld.

So you yell, scream, point fingers, cry for help. The guy bashes your face into the floor and the people who asked you to do this in the first place say that it's his right, since he belongs here now.

That's a breeding ground for desperate acts. I do not support terrorism in any fashion, and I think there are almost always alternatives to even more 'civilized' kinds of armed conflict. But I see where it came from. When you have no avenue for the redress of your grievances, you resort to more desperate means.

So let's fast forward to a few years ago. Yasser Arafat, leader of his people in their fight to regain their lands, makes unpopular compromises in the interest of peace, to put the Palestinians back on the road to independence; a lot of his people can't look forward far enough to appreciate anything other than immediate independence.

So Arafat makes a calculated risk, using his political capital to pull his people in a direction they aren't fully ready to go, thinking that in the end he'll be vindicated as the visionary who brought about the Palestinian state.

As several more years go by, each Palestinian step is met by an Israeli half-step. Palestinians lose patience, Arafat's stock plummets, and eventually things are on the brink of unravelling.

Enter Sharon. Former general and confirmed hawk, this is bad news. But he seems willing to consider peace and stability and, if not a Palestinian state, then at least some limited form of Palestinian self-determination.

Then comes the last few weeks. To sum up, Sharon ties Arafat's hands behind his back, then blames him for not doing anything when idiotically radical Palestinians start striking again in their desperate and wholly reprehensible way. They tell him to make them stop, not realizing that even among mainstream Palestinians he has only the thinnest thread of credibility left, and absolutely none left with the radical fringe. They will do him no more favors because they are convinced the Israelis cannot be trusted to live up to their end of any bargain (not to mention the ones who want to obliterate the state of Israel utterly).

And still everyone blames him for not stopping it. No one is listening to him. He's locked up in a little room. And he's supposed to magically make everyone play nice and listen to what the reasonable Israelis have to say.

The Israelis who mow down crowds of Palestinian civilians. The Israelis who view every Palestinian as a terrorist. The Israelis who deny passage to ambulances sent to bear the wounded, and even the run-of-the-mill sick Palestinians, to medical care. The Israelis who block aid workers and clergymen from delivering food, medicine and care to the innocent who are caught up in the struggle.

Frankly, I think it's time for the US to pull its money out of funding the Israeli government and military and put it into a UN mission to eject Israel from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and disarm Palestinian terrorists, work with the Palestinians to set up a functioning national government and help the Israelis move their settlements back to Israeli land.

Chris steps down from his soapbox and waits for the stoning to commence.