They Come to Take Your Land
2003-10-24, 12:56 p.m.

Yesterday was a very busy day for me. Unusual since I have a new job and am not inundated as many others are.

I mentioned I�ve been reading that book by Queen Noor and, while I don�t believe every single thing she says either, it has opened my eyes to the other side of the story. I�m still shocked that it never occurred to me to question the Israeli part in the continuing quest for peace in the Middle East. I�m far more sympathetic to the Palestinians than I used to be.

So, I have a meeting with the chair of my fund raising committee who is Jewish. This is relevant because she tells me about her trip to the Holy Land back �when it was safe to go there.� Before the Palestinians made it unsafe to travel in the area. For real. Before �they- did. Okay, so now that I have more information, here�s what I think:

Why on earth wouldn�t the Palestinians be ticked off? There homes were taken from them and they were more or less forced into refugee camps. Can anyone say reservation? Of all people, you�d think that I would have questioned where the land for Israel would have come from. And you know I�m going to be sympathetic to losing your land to invaders. Hello? This reminds me of an old story:

These NASA people were going to send a message to outer space and they were gathering pieces from all over the country. They got to the Dine reservation and were telling people what they were doing. An old man got very excited and asked, via a translator, if he could include a message. The NASA people agreed and he wrote his message in Dine. The translator read it, burst into laughter and refused to translate it. The NASA people could not get anyone to translate it, but those who could read it had the same reaction: uproarious laughter. Finally, they got back to NASA and had one of their own translators read it. When she finished laughing, she wiped the tears from her eyes and read the message out loud : Watch out for these guys. They come to take your land!