While I support the activities Starhawk is promoting in this particular communication, I am reserved because Starhawk has continuously joined in to condemn Israel at every turn possible while promoting the Palestinian cause neccessitating the turning of a blind eye to the horrors that society is perpetrating. I urge Starhawk to re-examine her villification of Israel, and promote a more balanced discussion in the future.

Starhawk is by no means villifying Israel. She is standing against actions that are hurting and killing innocent civilians. There are many persons from Israel who are also speaking out against action that is destroying the homes and lives of persons who are not involved in the conflict between the two nations.

reply to Jennifer: Thank you for being brave enough to use your actual name and email. I am getting pretty tired of the many cowards in here who spew their invectives while hiding behind a pseudonym. What do they think I am going to do to them? Send them some spam?

I have read some of Starhawks communications from the West Bank. She writes well, but filled with emotion and her own personal anguish. She completely neglects to write about the suffering that is going on a few miles away in the households of Israeli families who have lost family members to the violence or are nursing back to health a maimed loved-one.

Whenever you read any of these accounts from ISM workers, or Israeli "Peace" groups, note what they actually saw with their own eyes and what someone there told them....so-called eyewitness accounts. Almost all the reports of atrocities are "eye-witness" accounts which tell how innocent the Palestinians are and how evil the IDF was. Without going to the other side and finding out what THEY say about the same incident is bad reporting. THis is what Starhawk does. She only reports one side. She doesn't check. She doesn't verify. She uncritically passes on these "stories" to the general public. She has jumped on the current liberal bandwagon issue, and she can safely condemn Israel, because unlike the 21 other Arab/Muslim countries, she could be jailed or killed if she spoke out against them.

Israel stands for democracy,freedom of speech, freedom of religion, womens rights, gay rights, literacy, science, freedom of the press, and caring for the indigent. The Arab/Muslim countries stand for monarchy, military dictatorships, state-censored press, Islam only allowed, no womens rights, jail or death for gays, honor killings, illiteracy, suppression of scientific research, and Jihad.

If we want a peaceful world, we should be convincing the Arab countries to leave Israel alone and in peace. But thats a lot harder and more dangerous than condemning Israel.

"I am getting pretty tired of the many cowards in here who spew their invectives while hiding behind a pseudonym." Why does Becky Johnson need the real names of people who are posting on Indymedia? A comment: Governments use violence to maintain a certain type of peace. If you desire a peaceful world, yet support governments when they "stand" for things that you like, even if using violence and the threat of violence is always necessary for them to stay in power, it would be better to describe the type of peace you are interested in so that others can more easily determine whether they are in agreement with you or not. For example, if you are interested in a social peace that is enforced by police employed by nation-states who have come to some agreement about limiting their wars with each other or where every war is a "humanitarian intervention" aimed at securing a similar social peace in other nation-states, you should say so. If peace is your ideal, and you think that state-sponsored peace is the answer, even if the government must know all of our real names and what we are up to when we use them, then I am vehemently opposed to your idea of peace. People use the word peace much like they use the word democracy--they are most definitely for it, and therefore they are righteous.

Becky, you say Starhawk only reports on one side. Starhawk has spent a lot of time in the West Bank and Gaza. Have you? BTW I'm Jewish, and I think from what I've read here and elsewhere on Indymedia that you're the one with unbalanced views, defending a war-mongering apartheid state.

How is this for a little taste of balance? "for weeks I've been trying unsuccessfully to write something about the situation. I'm overwhelmed with accounts of the atrocities. Yet I am also haunted by images of bodies shattered at a Seder meal, at a café, a Passover drenched in a new plague of blood. I'm frightened and saddened by the real resurgence of anti-Semitism, by swastikas carried in peace marches, synagogues attacked......" Check out the rest, and ask yourself if you can struggle this hard with these wrenchingly contradictory issues, at: http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activism-writings/israel_palestine/heresies.html

Sorry folks, but I'd rather remain annonymous too and don't need to have my mailbox filled up with those who disagree. It's got nothing to do with cowardice.

Now, about Starhawk:

It seems that she is more or less being accused of having bias since she has been in the Palestinian territories but not on the other side. I think it's important to remember that she is actually part Jewish. But if we want to open our eyes the historical evidence proves that the Palestinians are definitely the underdogs in this struggle.

Now I'm not condoning suicide bombings which so much suffering for the innocent. Taking innocent life is wrong wrong wrong, in my book. But let's face it. The Palestinians were suddenly made second-class citizens on the land they were living on in 1947 or 48 when the U.N. turned their land over to the newly-created nation of Israel. They have been mistreated ever since.

Just for doing things that we sometimes take for granted here, like demonstrating against their mistreatment, the Israeli government bulldozes their houses down, as well as their fruit trees etc. I'm not against the Israeli people, and I doubt that Starhawk is either, but let's face it, Sharon is a butcher, and it was he who almost single handedly caused the demise of the peace plan which had been adopted during Clinton's presidency. Remember, Sharon went to the Wailing Wall, or some similar place special to the Palestinians,and began saying that they would never get their homeland back. He flapped his jaw, got elected, and then set in motion his brutal policies.

Israel is one of the most militarily superior nations on Earth. The Israeli people have a high standard of living which is denied to the Palestinians. I dislike terror as much as anybody does, and I'm sure that Starhawk does too. But let's face it; conducting suicide bombings is an act of desperation, and many people living on the West Bank have been made desperate by the Israeli government's inhumane policies. I say hurray for Starhawk. She's brave enough to point out the lack of justice in that part of the world. Hell, you sure don't hear about it here in the mainstream media.