The violence in the Palestinian-Israeli struggle is tragic whenever and wherever it occurs. My father was a Jew and my mother a gentile, but I speak for the Palestinian cause. Israel was set up by violently displacing Palestinians and removing them from their homes and their homeland in 1948. The writer below speaks of the Palestinian culture as being the sickest on the face of the earth. What happens when people are subjected daily to violence, starvation and poverty? People become desperate and, sometimes violent. Is it not an act of state terrorism every time Israel invades a Palestinian town and bulldozes people's homes, schools and hospitals? What about the so-called "security fence" which is more like an apartheid wall of separation that has taken even more land from the Palestinians? In building this "security fence," how many olive trees that Palestinian farmers cultivate to earn their livelihood did Israel tear down? How much more of the arable land did Israel take away from the Palestinians in building the "security fence?" Why did the Israelis allow the Amal Militia to invade the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon when Ariel Sharon was in charge of the security forces in Lebanon from 1982 to 1988? Men, women and children were killed at this time because Israel allowed this terror to continue and did nothing to intervene. Women were raped in front of their husbands and fathers during this tragic period.

The Diaspora has often been used to refer to Jews living outside of Palestine. Now the term can be used more appropriately for the Palestinian people themselves, a people who have been displaced, whose homes, schools and hospitals have been destroyed and who have lived in terrible poverty since 1948. Before declaring, in reference to Palestinians, "This is the sickest culture on the face of the earth," it bears noting the suffering that the Palestinians have had to endure. People with hope do not engage in suicide bombings. The weaponry available to Israel is far greater than that to which the Palestinians have access, so the Palestinians fight back the only way they can.

It is foreign occupation, subjugation to violence and poverty that have created suicide bombers, not Islam or "cultural sickness.

" I must finally add that I do not endorse anti-Semitism or anti-Jewish bigotry. The enemy is Zionism, not Jews. There have always been anti-Zionist Jews. Anyone who claims to endorse the Palestinian cause and spouts anti-Jewish hatred immediately discredits the cause she/he claims to support. We cannot tolerate hatred against any race or nationality. It should also be noted that there are many anti-Semites in the pro-Zionist camp such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson along with the others in the Christian Right whose support for Israel is based on a sick hope for the coming of Armageddon when most Jews and other non-Christians will supposedly be wiped off the face of the Earth and doomed to Hell and/or Purgatory, according to a literal interpretation of the Bible. Talk about "sick culture!"