Yes, with such a complicated conflict it's helpful to distill it down to 
its essentials.  It's fundamentally about Good vs Evil.  :)

I mean, I found much to agree with in this speech, but that part was 
really over the top!

For those who have read the novel Exodus by Uris, this reminds me of that. 
Both overgeneralize about Arabs to the point of out-and-out racism. 
Remember point 1 on the improvetheworld whiteboard.  Support Network 
Neutrality.  No, wait, under "the problem of radical Islamism":  be 
respectful and tolerant.

Anyway, my basic take is that Israel's fight is fundamentally a just one 
and that but for religious fanatics on both sides the conflict would long 
ago have been resolved.  (As long as we're putting the whole conflict in a 
nutshell!)

Danny

--- \/	 FROM Yevgeniy Vorobeychik AT 06.08.04 10:26 (Today)   \/ ---

> *Brigitte Gabriel Speech at Duke University
>
> Remarks of Brigitte Gabriel, delivered at the Duke University Counter
> Terrorism Speak-Out
> *
> I'm proud and honoured to stand here today, as a Lebanese speaking for
> Israel , the only democracy in the Middle East . As someone who was raised
> in an Arabic country, I want to give you a glimpse into the heart of the
> Arabic world.
>
> I was raised in Lebanon , where I was taught that the Jews were evil, Israel
> was the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the Middle East is
> when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea.
>
> When the Moslems and Palestinians declared Jihad on the Christians in 1975,
> they started massacring the Christians, city after city. I ended up living
> in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17, without electricity, eating
> grass to live, and crawling under sniper bullets to a spring to get water.
>
> It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon . My mother was
> wounded by a Moslem's shell, and was taken into an Israeli hospital for
> treatment. When we entered the emergency room, I was shocked at what I saw.
> There were hundreds of people wounded, Moslems, Palestinians, Christians,
> Lebanese, and Israeli soldiers lying on the floor. The doctors treated
> everyone according to their injury. They treated my mother before they
> treated the Israeli soldier lying next to her. They didn't see religion,
> they didn't see political affiliation, they saw people in need and they
> helped.
>
>> For the first time in my life I experienced a human quality that I know my
> culture would not have shown to their enemy. I experienced the values of the
> Israelis, who were able to love their enemy in their most trying moments. I
> spent 22 days at that hospital. Those days changed my life and the way I
> believe information, the way I listen to the radio or to television. I
> realized I was sold a fabricated lie by my government, about the Jews and
> Israel , that was so far from reality. I knew for fact that, if I was a Jew
> standing in an Arab hospital, I would be lynched and thrown over to the
> grounds, as shouts of joy of Allah Akbar, God is great, would echo through
> the hospital and the surrounding streets.
>
> I became friends with the families of the Israeli wounded soldiers: one in
> particular Rina, her only child was wounded in his eyes.
>
> One day I was visiting with her, and the Israeli army band came to play
> national songs to lift the spirits of the wounded soldiers. As they
> surrounded his bed playing a song about Jerusalem , Rina and I started
> crying. I felt out of place and started waking out of the room, and this
> mother holds my hand and pulls me back in without even looking at me.
> She holds me crying and says: "it is not your fault". We just stood there
> crying, holding each other's hands.
>
> What a contrast between her, a mother looking at her deformed 19 year old
> only child, and still able to love me the enemy, and between a Moslem mother
> who sends her son to blow himself up to smithereens just to kill a few Jews
> or Christians.
>
> The difference between the Arabic world and Israel is a difference in values
> and character. It's barbarism verses civilization. It's democracy verses
> dictatorship. It's goodness verses evil.
>
> Once upon a time, there was a special place in the lowest depths of hell for
> anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now, the intentional murder
> of Israeli children is legitimized as Palestinian "armed struggle".
>
> However, once such behaviour is legitimized against Israel, it is
> legitimized every where in the world, constrained by nothing more than the
> subjective belief of people who would wrap themselves in dynamite and nails
> for the purpose of killing children in the name of god.
>
> Because the Palestinians have been encouraged to believe that murdering
> innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic for advancing their cause,
> the whole world now suffers from a plague of terrorism, from Nairobi to New
> York , from Moscow to Madrid , from Bali to Beslan.
>
> They blame suicide bombing on "desperation of occupation". Let me tell you
> the truth. The first major terror bombing committed by Arabs against the
> Jewish state occurred ten weeks before Israel even became independent.
>
> On Sunday morning, February 22, 1948 , in anticipation of Israel 's
> independence, a triple truck bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists on Ben
> Yehuda Street , in what was then the Jewish section of Jerusalem .
> Fifty-four people were killed, and hundreds were wounded. Thus, it is
> obvious that Arab terrorism is caused not by the "desperation" of
> "occupation", but by the VERY THOUGHT of a Jewish state.
>
> So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and
> done nothing, allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and
> defeated communism, now it is time to stand up against the terror of
> religious bigotry and intolerance. It's time to all stand up, and support
> and defend the state of Israel , which is the front line of the war against
> terrorism.
>

-- 
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"

"In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest
proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which
happen from time to time." -- Edward P. Tryon