Throughout all of my traditional schooling, I felt that history and government classes were meant only to be suffered through. I felt they jammed useless facts into a head that had better things to memorize. Only recently have I found the history channel to be interesting, and only recently, watching the Middle East unravel, do I wish I knew the history of it all.
I know that the entire scenario has been going on for at least a half century and probably a few score times that, but it seems that globalization is making the Mid-East conflict expand beyond its usual borders for the first time ever. I can literally say that it has hit my neighborhood. And, with that, I feel I should take a side and let those in charge know which side I've taken. And no, I don't trust my government to do what's right without prodding -- there's too much politics, posturing, and money involved to keep their judgements unclouded. But that's coming from someone who never paid much attention in history class. And that brings me to my problem: I don't enough about what's going on in the Middle East to take a side.
I've watched the news and surfed the net, but the opinions of the writers seem to bleed into the facts and leave me sitting as dumbfounded as before. My leaning is to side with the Palestinians, because it seems that they've had land taken from them by Israel and continue to watch it happen. Further, the UN, which may or may not be a rational body, seems to side with Palestine. But I don't know enough about all this. I know the current events fairly well, can anyone enlighten me as to what the deep roots are?