Mr. Hannity: Yasser Arafat was an "evil actor" (p. 192), "the oldest terrorist" (p. 127).

Last week I submitted an article for editorial review on Political Cortex titled, "Rhetoric of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." It spent about one week in the queue, was voted up and down, and then finally disappeared from the queue. I would like to open a discussion about this controversial article for the purpose of gathering people's thoughts about it, and to learn why it was not deemed suitable for publication on this website.

Mr. Hannity: "The primary evil we face today is terrorism." (p. 3)

My response: With the traumatic images of September 11 burned into our consciousness, it can be tempting to look on international "Islamic" terrorism as the greatest evil inflicted by human beings upon our civilization. However, this view is erroneous, pathetically myopic, unconsciously self-pitying, encourages unlawful revenge, and is hypocritical.

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.