No credit to myself, but I have read so much about the geopolitical origins of Palestine, Israel and Gaza in the past few days, thanks to accessible and even-handed articles in Wikipedia, that my prior ignorance of the many factors leading to the present war is almost shameful.

While I chide myself for not having more fully researched the history of Palestine, I also take issue with the tens of millions of Americans — if not the majority of us — who offer our knee-jerk support for the state of Israel along with our hand-wringing sympathy for Palestinian refugees, and then leave it at that, as if there is nothing else to be said.

No discussion about Israel and Palestinian Arabs ever seems to get very far in the U.S. without devolving into shouting matches.  Criticism of Israeli policies or defense actions is a political and social third rail in this country, almost approaching the status of banned speech, never mind our First Amendment.  Expressions of support for the human rights of displaced Palestinians must necessarily begin with the phrase, “Of course we reject Hamas and Hezbollah and terrorist acts.”  But even that prefatory remark does little to open ears.

Protestors for each “side” in this conflict have been gathering in many cities and college campuses to air their respective viewpoints.  Those supporting the cause of Palestinians are at a disadvantage in the public eye, because support for Palestinian human rights has been successfully re-cast, by Israeli hard-liners, as opposing the existence of Israel.  And where do you go from there, when you have the Holocaust as your trump card.

• • • 

To be somewhat fair to myself, it’s not like I hadn’t done any reading on the Middle East before now.  A decade or so ago, when our attention was focused on Iraq, I read Quataert’s “The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922” and then MacMillan’s “Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World” — I highly recommend the latter as a chronological starting point for the mess that became the Middle East.

Next, you might go down the same path I did last week and start with the Wikipedia article Mandatory Palestine.  There you will find valuable offshoots like the Balfour Declaration, the 1948 Palestine War, the Palestinian expulsion and flight, and Occupation of Gaza Strip by the United Arab Republic.  Please indulge your curiosity, take time and read.

The fact that these articles felt like unfamiliar, untold stories to me is because U.S media covers Israel — and the U.S. government handles Israel — as if it were our 51st state; whereas Arab Muslims are cast as pariahs if not terrorists-in-waiting.  The information and intonation imbalance is striking.

One thing I will say, without malice to my Brit friends, but Sirs, your early 20th-century Empire did its ignorant best to bollox up the world big time, on each and every continent you stepped foot on.  The human toll of your arrogance may very well outlast that of our own.  Thank God the U.S. does not (usually) combine such lofty ambitions as yours with such colossal stupidity.