I went to Jerusalem in 2007, a short trip thinking I could produce a story by talking to people about what it's like to live there.

But I ended up having a nervous breakdown, or something like a nervous breakdown, where I couldn't get up off the floor of my motel room. Because when I went outside and

walked around Jerusalem or toured the area around Jerusalem, the Judean hills, the Holy Land,

what used to be called Palestine, but now is called the West Bank, I could see very easily that the whole place was one big prison system.

When you're there, you can see just by looking around that Israel has taken the land and water of Palestine

and forced the Palestinians to live in ghettos surrounded by concrete walls, razor wire,

security checkpoints, and constant surveillance. When you're there, it's easy to understand

why the Palestinians are fighting. They want their land and water back. They don't want to live

in a prison. I ended up on the floor

because first I was ashamed of my own ignorance that I hadn't known how bad things were. And then second,

I was frightened by everything being so obvious once I got there. The truth was being suppressed, big time.

And I knew that if I produced the story describing what I saw,

there would be close to zero chance that it would be played on the radio

or published in a magazine.

And also, there was a very good chance that I would then be labeled or

stamped anti-Semitic, meaning my career would be over. I'd be damaged goods, persona non-grata.

The reason I stayed on the floor was all this led inevitably to the conclusion that the whole profession of

journalism, all of our news media is corrupt. And this corruption is the reason Palestinians are

treated as animals in a cage because people in the United States remain ignorant of what's happening.

I felt weak, powerless, and I went home, and I stayed silent, afraid to speak.

Then, on October 7, 2003, some Hamas fighters broke out of the Gaza prison and massacred close to 1,000 Israelis, taking 250 hostage.

I have a theory why the leaders of Hamas started a war. They knew they couldn't win on the battlefield.

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