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A knot to untangle Hardly a week goes by without a news report that another group of Jewish settlers has taken up residence in a West Bank community, angering Palestinians who lived there first. In the same week, sometimes the same day, there are reports of an arms or explosives cache discovered in a Palestinian town or a terrorist bomb explosion, by accident or design, on the West Bank or in a Jerusalem shopping mall. Palestinians and Israelis know they have to untangle the knot of hostility and retaliation that has grown up now with three generations. It won't be easy, even though Americans tend to think it should be. In a speech in Seattle a few months ago, Israeli author Amos Oz chided Americans for thinking peace in the Middle East, particularly between Israelis and Palestinians, could be achieved "if they'd just sit down together and talk it out." It is both simpler than that and more complex, Oz said. "Americans assume that conflicts are misunderstandings," Oz said. "There is no misunderstanding. The Palestinians want the land because they believe it is theirs. The Israelis want the same land because they believe it is theirs. Both people, for historical reasons, have no country they can call their own. If we Israelis could have picked a less nasty enemy, we would have; if the Arabs could have picked a less determined enemy, they would have. But this is the neighborhood. "Americans want us to make love, not war. But what we need is to be able to make peace, not love."
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