Reading with Two Perspectives

Hey everyone! I thought I would expand on some of the things we discussed at our meeting last week, specifically regarding my personal experience while reading The Palestine-Israel Conflict. First off, I would like to say that I was pleasantly surprised that Dr. McGrath was able to find a book that had both perspectives on the conflict in it; I personally had never come across a book with both sides of the story! So I actually found that quite intriguing. I obviously have very close ties to the conflict, so I’ll be honest… you would rarely find me picking up a book on the conflict with the opposite perspective (at least not without putting it down very shortly after picking it up)! But, with this book, I was able to get both sides of the story. As I said at our meeting, there were times that while reading the Rabbi’s perspective, I couldn’t help but raise some red flags about what I read. This was mainly when it came to the reasons supporting the original establishment of a Jewish state… I fully understood the desire for the security that would come with a Jewish state and for an escape from anti-Semitism; but, I just kept asking, what about the Palestinian people that are already there? The book uses the term Diaspora to describe the Jewish people before the establishment of Israel. The way I see it, Jewish people are no longer in Diaspora; instead, Palestinians are in diaspora, in the sense of the definition of the word “scattering of people,” as a result of Jewish settlement in Palestine. I see this when I look at my extended family, all originally from Palestine, but living all over the world, and when I think about how both my mother’s family and my father’s family left everything behind and had to leave Palestine. I just don’t understand how that expense can possibly be justified. 

That's kind of a look into my thought process on the whole conflict. I look forward to actually visiting the area and seeing what the dynamics are like over there to gain more insight on the whole situation!