When I did my graduate studies at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University's School

of International Affairs, I took many courses on the question of the Middle East conflict.

semester after semester we studied the Middle East conflict as if it was the most complex

conflict in the world.

When in fact it is probably the easiest conflict in the world to explain.

It may be the hardest to solve, but it is the easiest to explain.

In a nutshell it is this, one side wants the other side dead.

Israel wants to exist as a Jewish state and to live in peace.

Israel also recognizes the right of Palestinians to have their own state and to live in peace.

The problem however is that most Palestinians and many other Muslims and Arabs do not recognize

the right of the Jewish state of Israel to exist.

This has been true since 1947 when the United Nations voted to divide the land called Palestine

into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

The Jews accepted the United Nations partition but no Arab or any other Muslim country accepted

it.

When British rule ended on May 15, 1948 the armies of all the neighboring Arab states, Lebanon,

Syria, Iraq, Transjordan and Egypt, attacked the one day old state of Israel in order to

destroy it.

But to the world's surprise the little Jewish states survived.

Then it happened again.

In 1967 the dictator of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasr, announced his plan in his words to destroy

Israel.

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