I know we're going to have to agree to disagree on many, if not most of the core issues here. I spend very little time here reading & responding to essays expressing POVs with which I already agree. That's a waste of time. When people manage to avoid categorizing one another & instead engage in conversation, those instances provide the fullest opportunities to learn & grow.

I certainly appreciate your eloquence & the account of your mother's experiences, which seem quite remarkable. You've relayed them with eloquence & clarity.

There are a few points of fact, however, with which I disagree. E.g. nearly all Jewish survivors were Polish or from the USSR. The Soviets, per Yalta agreements, had the right to forcibly repatriate survivors, which they did. Those few that escaped were essentially stateless. Meanwhile Poland was coming under Soviet domination, but experiencing civil strife until the end of '46. Nearly two thousand Polish Jews were murdered, many of them survivors. Those that remained were scattered, had no organization, save for the Zionists. So, working for justice in their native countries wasn't an option.

I want to be clear here: I don't blame Palestinians for refusing to partition any part of their land. But I don't blame the Jews for seeking a nation. They stole land—a crime, yes—to avoid a greater crime—being murdered.

Again, I don't expect you or any Palestinian to find that a satisfactory reason for being dispossessed of the land, but there it is.

Also, as far as many in the Yishuv were concerned, the Arabs weren't entirely innocent. When Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini met with Hitler in 1941 he extracted a promise from the Nazi leader not to allow any more Jews into Palestine, which had been one idea floated by the SS prior to the Wannsee conference. Hitler kept his word. Did that actually cause more Jews to die? I think it unlikely because the Germans didn't have the ability to transship large numbers of people to Palestine even if they wanted to. But many in the Yishuv felt the Palestinians should pay for the Mufti's provocation.

Israel, as envisioned by the UN, might have been satisfied with their 60% Jewish majority, but unfortunately demanded a greater ratio, thus expelling, or frightening away many more Palestinians, razing their villages in a "de-Arabization" program that continues to this day.

Finally, many critics of Israel & Zionism regard it as "typical" settler-colonialism, as you've implied in your comments. But Britain, for one, did not want a Jewish state in Palestine, & abstained from the partition vote in '47. The US voted in favor, true, but only because Truman was facing election in '48 & felt in need of American Jewish support. In short, for all of its shortcomings (which are many) Israel wasn't a western outpost in the ME. Not at first...

I'm working on a way to express how "Israelism" has tainted Zionism, rather than the other way around as most critics seem to put it.

I also look forward to reading more of your essays.