What is wrong with our country?

Case #1: On Friday, my friend Andrea went to Logan to meet two men, an Israeli and a Palestinian. Each had been a combatant on the side of his country, and both have put aside their militant approach, in order to work for peace. It was the first time the Israeli man had been to the U.S., and he came through immigration in under two hours. The Palestinian man had been in the country last year and had met with members of Congress. He is a founder of the organization Combatants for Peace, a grassroots group of former soldiers, who are now opposed to violence. In the fall, some peace groups applied for a visa for him to come to this country. Visa was denied. Then our government invited him to come to participate in a conference. A subsequent visa application for this month was approved.

Friday, he was detained for 7 hours at Logan. Then admitted to our country. He and the Israeli man are on a speaking tour for the next month, and have been invited to the U.N. Next week they will be given the Courage of Conscience award at the Peace Abbey, in Massachusetts. But it seems that a Palestinian, by definition must be a terrorist.

Case #2: Locally, Seacoast Peace Response has sponsored a series of programs at the Portsmouth Public Library, to try to get at the Palestinian's point of view on the problems in the Middle East. My understanding of the situation is that at each program, a well-organized group of Jews have attended and aggressively disputed not just the content of the programs, but the groups right to present the programs at the public library. One man has now threatened to ruin the careers of the two facilitators/discussionn leaders, a UNH professor and a local pscychologist.

The library has cancelled the most recent program, a dramatic presentation which presents the story of Rachel Corrie, a peace activist who tried to prevent the bulldozing of Palestinian homes by the Israeli military, and was killed by a bulldozer.

Are there not at least two sides to this conflict? Do we not live in a free country? Isn't education the means to understanding? Shouldn't a publicly-funded facility be the ideal place to host challenging programs? Why is there so much fear and anger on the part of the protesters?

We have met the enemy, and it is us.