The outbreak of major fighting between Hamas and Fateh in Gaza this past weekend is dismissed in the major US media as another example of the Arab's continuing inability to work together for their greater good.

In the film "To Kill a Mockingbird," Atticus Finch says, "You never really understand a person until ... you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

When the Palestinian people were driven from what had been their home for centuries, approximately a quarter of a million of them resettled in Southern Lebanon.  Ex-President Jimmy Carter's book "The Blood of Abraham" said a mouthful with its title.  The Israelis and Arabs are blood brothers.  The Israeli-Arab conflict might be labeled "a family feud" as they are indeed blood brothers, lest they forget.

To absorb the displaced Palestinians was not an easy task, and what made it all the more difficult is that in Jerusalem both Arabs and Jews had religious sites they considered equally sacred.

This famous family feud began to extend far beyond the borders of the Middle East.  At one strategic point along this path to ousting Palestinians was the challenge to avoid an all-out war to create Israel, as a fulfillment to some Jews of what they claim is a biblical prophecy.

Breaking news: USA Today, August 18, 2006, under the headline "Officials: U.S. blocked missiles to Hezbollah, Syria bound Iranian plane had to turn back, they say"

The John Diamond story contained the following:

"The United States blocked an Iranian cargo plane's flight to Syria last month after intelligence analysts concluded it was carrying sophisticated missiles and launchers to resupply Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, two U.S. intelligence officials say.

"Eight days after Hezbollah's war with Israel began, U.S. diplomats persuade Turkey and Iraq to deny the plane permission to cross their territory to Damascus."

The diary below was originally posted earlier today on my blog the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

In July 1947, George F. Kennan published an article in the quarterly edition of Foreign Affairs entitled "Sources of Soviet Conduct." Kennan originally drafted the article as a paper for Defense Secretary James Forrestal. When he submitted it to Foreign Affairs, Kennan used the moniker "Mr. X." The piece was known as "containment" and is credited with guiding American foreign policy under presidents of both parties during the cold war.

The following paragraph appeared on the International Page of the New York Times in its July 18, 2006 issue in its coverage of the G-8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia:

"After a day in which aides stressed they had achieved international unity here on the Middle East violence, Mr. Bush complained about Mr. (Kofi) Annan's approach to the crisis and for holding a view of many leaders here that Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah should cease fire and hash out their differences.   The Americans have said that Israel will probably stand down only if Hamas and Hezbollah return the soldiers they have captured and cease the shelling of small Israeli towns.

"'I don't like the sequence of it,' Mr. Bush said.  `His attitude is basically cease fire and everything else happens.'"

Bush apparently does not mind the bloodshed just as long as the blood isn't his own.  Just think back a few years in what now seems like an eternity to what life was like in the United States before Bush.

The diary below was originally posted earlier today in my blog the, Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Two years ago, David Michaelis, an Israeli citizen and Jamal Dajani, a Palestinian-American traveled to their mutual birthplace in Jerusalem and filmed a groundbreaking documentary called "Occupied Minds". The film originally aired in 2005 and powerfully illustrated the widening gulf between two entangled peoples in pain.

Both men grew up in Jerusalem just a few miles apart but in entirely different universes. Jamal's roots in Jerusalem can be traced to the 7th century, while Michaelis was born in Jerusalem to parents who left Germany in the 1920's because of escalating anti-Semitism.

As the terrorist group Hamas swept 76 of 132 seats in Wednesday's Palestinian legislative elections, the fingernails of extremism ground their way mockingly across the blackboard of Democracy -- the world aghast.

But the shock wasn't shared by everybody. Over a half million Palestinians actually voted to put these people in power.

What drove them to show such widespread support for a group so widely regarded as a bloodthirsty, cowardly gang of terrorists?

Simple. Those who voted for Hamas don't see them as terrorists. That's why they voted to give a stiff middle finger to those of us who do.

Hamas won a solid victory in Palestine, raising considerable concerns around the world as a "terrorist" group gains power. There is no question that the rise to power of an extremist group of any sort is worrisome. And Hamas does advocate terrorism and oppression of women. Hamas are extremists. But so are many governments that America supports. The extremism of Hamas is a concern. But there is one problem with opposing the Hamas government: they were democratically elected.

Whatever our approach to dealing with the Hamas government, we have to start from this beginning: they were democratically elected.