1. felix quigley said:

This person said (Is he an Israeli?)

""You don't identify with one side more than another," said Esther Wiener, 50. "I understood the other (Palestinian) side. I saw human beings who are caught up in this quagmire. There is no right side and no wrong side."

Somehow we have to build a totally new leadership inside Israel as without which will stand in total opposition to the above statement.

Esther leaves out a few small items, one of which is the Holocaust, and the role played there side by side with the Nazis, (he was a Nazi) of Hajj Amin el Husseini.

This example of equivalence is sickening.

2. Bill Narvey said:

Daniel Pipes and others have described the movie Paradise Now as a pro Palestinian propaganda film and say it should be shunned. It does not however look like this film is being shunned.

Paradise Now has been sold to 45 countries, including Israel. It has received praise as being well done and it has also won the Blue Angel Award for best European film at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

One should not get too upset at Esther Wiener's sound bite comment. A good film can reach people and allow them to suspend their disbelief for a while. On the other hand, Ms. Wiener might be part of a minority of left wingers in Israel who seem to be self loathing Israelis in accord with the dictates of their looney left wing ideology and who are sympathetic to Palestinians.

Implacable Palestinian/Arab Jew/Israeli hatred would never allow a movie sympathetic to Israel to ever be shown to a Palestinian or Arab audience. If it was, it is inconceivable any audience member would be moved by it.

Hate does not allow for empathy and understanding and it perverts one's humanity. Palestinian/Arab Jew/Israel hatred is an insurmountable hurdle in the Israel Palestinian conflict

Israeli's, in spite of their frustrations and anger with Palestinians and Arabs, do not hate them. Because of that, Israelis can see a well done movie sympathetic and be moved by empathy for a movie character to feel some sense of understanding of the plight of others who the character represents.

By far, most Israelis and Jews worldwide, have some understanding and even some sympathy for the difficult plight of Palestinians, but they also know that Palestinians are a dangerous deadly enemy, so ruled by their hatreds that they can only see their lives improving with Israeli's pain and Israel's destruction.

It does not look like Palestinians are going to abandon or even moderate their seething and all consuming Jew hatred any time soon.

I see Israeli's pushed, prodded and pressured by America and the world to make various concessions to Palestinians.

However moved Israelis and Jews might be by pro- Palestinian propaganda, the majority at least will not be conned into letting their guard down for they sadly know the reality that Palestinians can only see a good Israeli as being a dead one.