[NYer]

For many of us in the west, today's visit to the Palestinian refugee camp is challenging to comprehend. Keep in mind that the Holy Lands are home to many peoples who trace their family heritage back thousands of years. One of the christian palestinians who made a presentation to the pope, related how his family had lived in Nazareth for more than 2000 years. These people have lost their homes - residences that date back hundreds of years - and their children, born in this refugee camp, speak of holding the "keys" to their family homes, waiting for the day when they will return. Sadly, some of their villages no longer exist. They have been bulldozed over and their homes forever lost.

We americans are accustomed to moving around from one state to another, one residence to another. In the Middle East, what marks a family is its name and town of origin. Essentially, these refugees have lost their ancestral homesteads are now walled up in camps, numbering 52, until a resolution can be achieved. They view themselves as living in the diaspora.

[DonaldC]

What a crock. Few of those people could trace back more than a century and those that could, would find they should be in Jordan, Egypt, or some other Islamic stink hole.

[Piranha]

Challenging to comprehend? Try unforgivable. Theological objections to necessary self-defense are morally unsupportable to me, even when articulated by the Pope.

[annalex]

What is challenging in that?

The long-term solution to a conflict such as this can only be political

Excellent address that points to the root of the problems in the Holy Land: absence of political will to coexist.

[Appleby]

They are not *walled up in camps.* They have walled THEMSELVES up in camps, on the promise of their brothers in countries that refuse to take them in, that when the so-called Zionist Entity is marched into the sea, that the WayBack Machine will restore the world to 1947.

[tessalu]

I have lost my ancestral home, too, so “Boo Hoo”. I have the same sympathy for the Palestinians as I do for myself. None. “Boo, Hoo”.