<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> Wimblees@AOL.COM wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE>Paul That would mean pulling out of the Middle East, because nothing short of that will satisfy the radical Arabs. That would mean leaving Israel alone, to defend herself against the entire Arab world. It mean leaving our interest in the oil the United States, and the rest of the Western world, depends on. We can't afford to do that. We can, though, as you suggested, recognize that there is a problem, and hope and pray that a willingness to cooperate will be the final solution. But in the mean time, not to sound to radical about it, but we have a score to settle. Wim</blockquote> Thanks for recognizing the problem.  We should, in fact largely "pull out" of the Middle East.  We are propping up a corrupt regime in Saudi Arabia so that U.S. companies can continue to control the oil there.  That's not necessary.  They are going to have to sell their oil somewhere no matter who is in power, and we are the biggest consumer.  We just have to stop meddling in their internal affairs and not allow the oil companies to determine foreign policy there. The case of Israel and the Palestinians is almost exactly analogous to that of the settlers and Indians in this country.  The Palestinian point of view is almost never heard, but the Israelis tell us that they are all "terrorists" and deserve what they are getting.  That's what we said about the Indians as we took their land and livelihood away from them.  The Israelis keep encroaching on Palestinian land with our encouragement, not to mention more than $1,000/yr in aid for every man, woman and child in Israel.  We don't have to leave Israel defenseless, but we can definitely make sure that our aid isn't used to wipe the Palestinians off the map. These are just two of the many cases where our heavy hand causes hatred in places where we were once admired. Paul Larudee</html>