I really hope he's wrong.

I'm reading this book called "Righteous Victims" about Israel — specifically, the tangled relationship between Zionists and Palestinians. It's going incredibly slowly, but is quite interesting, in a depressing sort of way, as it paints an unattractive picture of both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, and punctures all kinds of myths cherished by each. The author, Benny Morris, seems to be disliked by reviewers on both sides of the question...which means he must be doing a good job, right? But these days, he seems to be taking sides. In today's London Guardian, Morris has published a very pessimistic opinion piece. To quote, in part:"The Palestinian leadership, and with them most Palestinians, deny Israel's right to exist, deny that Zionism was/is a just enterprise. (I have yet to see even a peace-minded Palestinian leader, as Sari Nusseibeh seems to be, stand up and say: "Zionism is a legitimate national liberation movement, like our own. And the Jews have a just claim to Palestine, like we do.") Israel may exist, and be too powerful, at present, to destroy; one may recognise its reality. But this is not to endow it with legitimacy. Hence Arafat's repeated denial in recent months of any connection between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount, and, by extension, between the Jewish people and the land of Israel/Palestine. "What Temple?" he asks. The Jews are simply robbers who came from Europe and decided, for some unfathomable reason, to steal Palestine and displace the Palestinians. He refuses to recognise the history and reality of the 3,000-year-old Jewish connection to the land of Israel."I'm getting sore shoulders again just thinking about the whole thing...back to work!