Bill, Noam Chomsky had a recent article in Z magazine on the peace process which has references (I believe to some of his and other's work in this area in which he has been very involved. He is very critical of Israel and the U.S. - perhaps more than I might be as a "Holocast Zionist" myself - but I trust his integrity as to the facts. I hate to get into this but I think it is useful to note that the radical islamicists in their insistance that non-moslem minorities do not belong in the Middle East (even though many were there well before them) are imperialists and racists themselves. Of course this is not to say that Zionism as a national movement is not in conflict with the aspirations of the palestinians and does not use support from powerful imperialist allies such as the U.S. to sustain its persecution and repression of palestianians just as the Arab states (who have also persecuted the Palestinians) have used oil diplomacy to sustain their agenda. A friend characterized the middle east as "an historical tragedy" with no just solution. Many Jews litterly had no where to go during WWII so they colonized palestine pushing out palestinians who have also not been allowed to freely settle elsewhere.... I hope this has been helpful - In Solidarity, Ron Baiman Dept. of Economics Roosevelt Univ., Chicago