From previous threads on this message board, Mr. Odom seems to come at the Arab-Israeli side from a moderately anti-Israeli position. His stance seems to be that the foreign "Zionists" have invaded a country and that their claim on the land is inferior to the "Palestinians". We will not change such Arabist views on this thread. However, in fairness, i do believe we should be clear that there was nothing like a "Palestinian" nation up til the 1960s, just about the time when the Arabs realized that painting the conflict as "Israel vs. Palestinians" would appeal much more than "Israel vs. Arabs". It's as if Nazi Germany decided that the Sudeten Germans living in Czechoslovakia required a new nation known as "Sudetenland" to achieve self-government. Oh wait, they did do that