Israel and Palestine
When I was a kid, I thought that the Israel of today was continuous with the one from the storybook. It wasn't until the second intifada started that I learned the truth.
The ancient kingdom of Israel existed for about 500 years that ended about 2000 years ago. Humans have been present in that part of the world since around 10,000 B.C.E. The modern Palestinians are descended from a mix of the people who have inhabited that region since that time, and that mix actually includes the early Jews.
A lot of us still don't know this, and that is causing people to support something that they do not understand.
What I do understand is that "Never again" doesn't just mean never again for some people. It means never again in this world.
No justice, no peace.
Do you think it is OK for people to be killed and expelled from their land based solely on their race and religion? I don't, and I don't want to pay for it to happen. There is no ethnic group that is any more special than any other. We are all equally human, and this world is equally all of ours. This has nothing to do with any specific religion. This is about behavior and policy.
Why do we use the innocent sounding term 'settler' to describe people who are actively expelling people from their homeland? That term implies that they are moving into an unpopulated frontier, and that is absolutely not what is happening.
Why is it dangerous for us as Americans to question the policy of a foreign government? How did we let this happen? Who is responsible for it? Allowing a small, vocal minority within a major party to criticize a policy gives the public a release valve. It creates the appearance of active debate and democratic choice, while ensuring that the actual legislative votes required to change funding, weapon transfers, or strategic alliances are always locked down by the party leadership.
We must stop sending weapons to Israel. 'Self defense' doesn't mean you get to kill people because their neighbors did something horrible. 'Self defense' doesn't mean you get to annex the territory of sovereign neighbors because someone there might do something in the future.
To be honest, the regional offer of a two-state scenario based on pre-1967 borders is extremely generous, and we should do everything in our power to see it through. It is an offer for recognition and peace, and it is already globally recognized as the best possible solution. We have to remember that not everyone in the region is a combatant, and that most of the people there just want to live normal lives in the place they were born.