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When I was a kid, I considered myself a radical-anarchist-this that and the other thing-but I was playing "Cowboys and Indians" with my friends: you know, shoot the Indians. That's like playing "Aryans and Jews" in Germany-you go out and try to kill the Jews. Well, that lasted for a very long time in the United
States, and nobody even noticed anything curious about it.

I mean, just to tell you another story: I live in Lexington, a mainly uppermiddle-class professional town near Boston, which is very liberal, everybody votes for the Democrats, they all give to the right causes, and so on.

Well, in 1969-the year's interesting-one of my kids was in fourth grade, and she had a Social Studies textbook about the early history of New England, called Exploring New England; the book was centered on a boy named Robert, who was being shown the glories of colonial New England by some older man or something.

Well, one day I decided to poke through it, because I was curious about how the authors were going to deal with the colonists' extermination of the native peoples here. So I turned to the point in the book where they got to the first really major act of genocide in New England, the Pequot Massacre of 1637-when the colonists murdered the Pequot tribe. And to my surprise, it was described quite accurately: the colonists went into the village and slaughtered all the men, women and children, burned everything down, burned out all the Pequots' crops. Then I got to the bottom line. The bottom line had this boy, Robert, who's being told all of these things, say: "I wish I were a man and had been there." In other words, it was a positive presentation. That was in 1969, right after the My Lai massacre was exposed.

That would be inconceivable today-because there have been very important changes in the culture, and a real increase in civilization. And those changes are largely the result of a lot of very significant activism and
organizing over the last couple decades, by people that I would refer to as "honest intellectuals."

Peace with Islam and Muslims is impossible. The only time Muslims seek peace is when they need to reload.

A moving and harrowing account by a woman who wishes the occupation of Jerusalem to end. Can't spin the occupation of Jerusalem or the desire of those living under occupation (and illegal annexation, don't forget) as anything other that what it is.

He was wrong. Hours after the news item about Mohammed was broadcast, the hospital switchboard was jammed with callers. An Israeli Jew whose son died during his military service donated $55,000, and for the first time the Abu Mustafa family began to feel hopeful. Only then did Eldar grasp the full dramatic potential of the story. He told his editor, Tali Ben Ovadia, that he wanted to continue accompanying the family.

...Nevertheless, this idyllic situation developed into a deep crisis that led to the severance of the relations and what appeared to be the end of the filming. From an innocent conversation about religious holidays, Raida Abu Mustafa launched into a painful monologue about the culture of the shahids - the martyrs - and admitted, during the complex transplant process, that she would like to see her son perpetrate a suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem.

"Jerusalem is ours," she declared. "We are all for Jerusalem, the whole nation, not just a million, all of us. Do you understand what that means - all of us?"

She also explained to Eldar exactly what she had in mind. "For us, death is a natural thing. We are not frightened of death. From the smallest infant, even smaller than Mohammed, to the oldest person, we will all sacrifice ourselves for the sake of Jerusalem. We feel we have the right to it. You're free to be angry, so be angry."

And Eldar was angry. "Then why are you fighting to save your son's life, if you say that death is a usual thing for your people?" he lashes out in one of the most dramatic moments in the film.

"It is a regular thing," she smiles at him. "Life is not precious. Life is precious, but not for us. For us, life is nothing, not worth a thing. That is why we have so many suicide bombers. They are not afraid of death. None of us, not even the children, are afraid of death. It is natural for us. After Mohammed gets well, I will certainly want him to be a shahid. If it's for Jerusalem, then there's no problem. For you it is hard, I know; with us, there are cries of rejoicing and happiness when someone falls as a shahid. For us a shahid is a tremendous thing."