Out of the Past

At the core of the conflict is the reality that redress for the Jewish victims of centuries of European pogroms, which culminated in the Holocaust, made victims out of Palestinians, non-Europeans who had nothing to do with the repression of Jews on the Continent….

…the majority of Gaza’s inhabitants are refugees (or their descendants) who were displaced from their homes in 1947-1948 in what was then Palestine and is now Israel…

History teaches that justice is a prerequisite for peace, and that truth is a prerequisite for justice. Understanding what is happening today in Gaza — another chapter in a seemingly endless cycle of vengeance — requires an understanding of what happened in 1947-1948. Absent an acknowledgment of the truths of the past, there can be no agreement on the future.

by Tarif Abboushi
commentary in the Houston Chronicle