Israel was unknown to me until I saw the movie Exodus. Then Israelis became the good guys and I remember cheering for Israel in high school during the ‘67 war.

The older I became the more I wondered about the endless strife. Why were the bad guys, the Palestinians, so crazy? How could they do such apparently mindless things to a people who had brought such progress to a backward area? Nothing in the news in the United States ever intimated that there might be another side to the story. I knew plenty of Jews, my own sister converted to Judaism, but I knew not a single Palestinian and nothing about Islam.

It was at my sister’s home that I spotted Conor Cruise O’Brien’s book, The Siege and began to read. Suddenly I became aware that there was far far more to the history of Israel than that of a band of rugged heroes who knew how to stand up for themselves and proudly taught a bunch of swarthy rogues a lesson.

I became fascinated with the history. So the Palestinians were not devils incarnate. They had a story too. Book after book I have read on Israel and the Middle East and I’ve taken undergrad courses on such things as the history of the Ottoman Empire. I am now awed and ashamed at the profound ignorance in which I dwelled for so long. Yet as I query my fellow citizens I realize that ignorance of the Middle East is widespread, it is the rule. In fact, I have had people say to me, “Oh, it’s too complicated, I don’t want to hear about it” or “They are all insane over there, I just wish both sides would blow each other up and be done with it.” I want to shake them and say “But your country is contributing in a major way to what happens over there – WAKE UP!”

Only within the past few years has another voice been heard in the States, a voice that questions the knee-jerk support for Israel’s right wing. I am astounded at the way Israel has essentially thumbed its nose at U.S. policy that directly opposed the settlements…and with only a few hesitations has prevailed and continues to do so!

Only recently have I discovered such groups as B’Tselem whose excellent publications I get regularly. Only recently have I come to understand how the bitterness of the Palestinians has come to be and what a benighted people they are, even through actions of their own. They need a land of their own!

So to say that you will vote because you are informed is of small account in relation to the work you can do to inform those who known nothing as I did. Things are changing in the United States and you are helping to change them, for the good of both the U.S. and Israel.