And they wonder to this day why the Polish farmer sniffed, looked up, and continued plowing, on the outskirts of Auschwitz.

The Good Samaritan is a Christian concept, no? I'm not talking about the calculated marketing device under the slogan "Am I my brother's keeper?' Especially when the term brother has a very specific meaning that does not include the human race.

Akiva Eldar takes this garbage to absurd lengths. I've asked him, and will continue to ask anyone who peddles this line: What exactly is different between what the settlers of Hebron and the Dead Sea valley are doing today and what the settlers of 1948 did in Haifa, Jaffa and Akka? And if you feel so utterly outraged by what is going on in Hebron today, why aren't you too bothered about what happened in Haifa 60 years ago?

I've yet to receive one marginally intelligent (even by Zionist standards) answer to this question.

I happen to support the State of Israel, a state for the Jewish people. What happened in the creation of that state leading up to 1948 were unfortunate for the Palestinian natives. They were truly undeserving victims. They and their descendents deserve reparations. But if Israel continues these Zionist ambitions into the the West Bank then it will be impossible for Israel to be anything else other than a colonial settler state with Jewish dominium over a majority of Arab natives. This will be irreconcilable with any notion of democracy.

Where Sternhell, as well as Phillip, are wrong is their belief that this move control the West Band is only being pushed by a minority of Jews. They cite polling data that shows that more than 50% of the population would trade the West Bank for peace. This question is so vague as to be meaningless. Here are some more relevant political facts.

A majority of career COs in the IDF support annexation.

A clear majority of the the officials and voters in the rightwing political parties support annexation.

A majority of officials in Mossad support current policies of suppressing West Band Palestinians.

A significant number of the left wing politicians support current West Bank policies. (Of course they are always open to negotiation, such as the Oslo process or Camp David that seem to end in failure).

Between 30 to 40 per cent of the Israeli electorate support the transfer option.

About 70% would never live in a neighborhood that included Arabs.

This is extremely weak support for any two-state solution. Then let us add that 8% of the Jewish Israeli population now live in the West Bank as settlers. These are people who are willing to put their lives on the line to stop any two state solution. Who on the other side are willing to stop them? The labor Party? The IDF (keep track, their officers are already on the other side)?

A reasonable person could conclude that the irreversible facts that Sharon dedicated his life to putting on the ground are now reality. And Sternhell and Phillip can wish all they will, it will not go away.

Exactly. It's been Hebron again and again from start to finish.

Jesus take a rain check on the hatred guys!
Haaretz says Zionism is dying! DYING!!Carters name and book are recovering, W&M are reverberating, Joe Klein is renouncing, Jon Stewart has ridiculed AIPAC and also just destroyed Neocon Ben Wattenburg:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=178079&title=ben-wattenberg

(BTW, Ben W. made a mockery of the neocon claims to 'seriousness' in that clip. He used it again and again as a shield, and Stewart just laughed.)

This is simply sick Charles. Auschwitz and/or the Holocaust in fact show that the "Good Samaritan" is a really rare species among Christians who put so much emphasis on the "brother theme".

On the other hand since matters are often complex on the ground. There was a large group of Polish priests who ended up in the camps. So theoretically yes, but practically very, very, very rarely the "Good Samaritan" tale mattered.

The Golem and/or Homunculus seem to have a just as long and complex history.

Charles has a point!

Hitler's extermination camps were in occupied Eastern Poland for a reason. He knew that Polish anti-Semitism was way more intense than in Germany. And this was so because of the historical role of the Jews in Polish society, a role that was not beneficial to the Polish farmer (as the role of the settlers is not beneficial to the Palestinian farmer – that's Charles' rough analogy).

By all accounts, as much as the Poles suffered under the German occupation they credited them for getting their country rid of the Jews. Schindler's List makes a point of that at the end of the movie when a Russian soldier tells the Schindler Jews "You can't go back to Poland, they hate you there". And they hated them there for a reason.