Recently I was on a zoom call with a group of highly intelligent and, I hasten to add, highly opinionated, not so young but not so old, people with whom I engage on a weekly basis and whose perspectives I have come to value highly, although we often disagree.

The topics discussed each week vary, but given the fact that 70% of the participants live in the U.S. the topic often turns to the political situation there.  Nevertheless, with three of us either living adjacent to the Mediterranean basin or having come from this area, regional politics along with the seemingly never ending Arab-Israeli conflict surfaces quite often as well.

The Middle East related segment of the discussion this week centered on the ugly and mostly inaccurate screed by Nicholas Kristoff which appeared in a recent issue of the New York Times as well as the constant stream of publicity in the Arab World on Israel’s killing the women and children of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

What the press never covers, of course, is Israel’s commitment to be a moral army and the fact that our neighbors have closed their borders to those who want to leave Gaza or Lebanon........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)