A very simple concept...

A lot of people are peddling notions that Arabs “teach their children hatred” or that the anger felt by Arabs and Muslims is “irrational” or “primal” or “thousands of years old”. Don’t believe it. People in the region are angry because their children are dying and their homes blown up. Wouldn’t you be if your children were killed and your home blown up? I was pretty angry on 9/11, weren’t you? Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq – they are suffering daily 9/11s, we can hardly blame them for feeling the same way we did.

What needs to be done is to stop the occupations that are killing their kids and blowing their homes up. And that’s a political problem, not a cultural or a religious one. Which means it’s solvable. That’s how everyone in the region (including Israelis) can find a peaceful life and move forward. Every time someone realizes that, we move one step closer to peace. Every time you hear someone peddling fear-mongering notions of irreconcilable cultural or religious differences, peace is pushed one step farther away. Isn’t it interesting that both Osama Bin Laden and the Israeli, American, and European right wings are peddling those same hateful arguments? Don’t let those falsehoods win, they only win if people turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people realize that a few basic political and humanitarian wrongs need to (and can) be fixed, things can be better.