A Damaging Distance: For Israelis and Palestinians, Separation Is Dehumanizing
--I am not posting this because of my respect for Ethan Bronner, but because of this historical context he supplies.
This for example is one of his mistakes: "Palestinian rocket attacks that have displaced thousands."
no, that has not happened.
will the times retract? correct?
"displaced" - as in had to leave their homes forever and become refugees like the Palestinians, or as in went to an air raid shelter for an hour?
as to the article:
"During the 1980s and ’90s, tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip worked in Israel. They learned Hebrew and built relations with their Israeli employers. They watched Israeli television (there was little else available), and many developed a cautious but unmistakable admiration for Israeli politics and public accountability. When Palestinians talked of building a state, it was not uncommon to hear members of their elite refer to Israel as a model. They witnessed the robust (sometimes brutal) nature of public discourse in Israel, and many liked what they saw.
In turn, Israelis would venture on weekends into the West Bank, where they would get their cars fixed, shop for vegetables and snack on plates of unparalleled hummus. They attended weddings of their Palestinian employees and their children. Some Israelis and Palestinians even went into business together.
The relationship between the two peoples was hardly that of equals. It had a colonial quality not unlike that along much of the American border with Mexico.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/sunday-review/for-israelis-and-palestinians-separation-is-dehumanizing.html?_r=0