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This is not just a 'Lebanon visitation' or a 'Palestinian issue'. It entails an evolutionary change in mindset encompassing Israel, the Palestinian people, the Arab nations, Muslims and the international community.

If a neutral observer were to look at the 'Palestinian issue' from a 'fresh' perspective, he would make the following inferences:

After the Holocaust, 70,000 Jews were smuggled to settle 'illegally' in Israel. These refugees had suffered abhorrent persecutions at the hands of Hitler and the Nazis, and they were being rejected outright by the rest of the world. No country was willing to take them in.

In 1947, the United Nations passed Resolution 181 petitioning Palestine to give 18% of Palestinian land to the Jews, keeping 82% for Arabs. This was rejected outright by the Arab nations. The Middle East did not want a Jewish state in their predominantly Islamic domain. The rest of the world had rejected the Jews, so why should Palestine be arm-twisted into giving them 18% of their land?

The Arabs perceived the bullying of Palestine and the unilateral annexation of a piece of its land for the Jews to be a great insult to all Arabs in the region, and to all Muslims in the world. They immediately convened and assembled an army to evict the Jews from Palestine, even if that entailed destroying Palestinian homes, livelihood, families and lives. What was at stake, and of far reaching importance, was the redemption of Arab pride and Islam's honor.

But for a people without land, and having had to endure such horrendous treatment at the hands of the Nazis, and then rejection by the world, the Jews in Israel had a far greater motivation and catalyst to fight for their right to live and to survive and thrive on the only piece of land they can call home, and that is the land of Israel.

The Arabs have been unable to win a protracted war to drive the Jews out of Israel, and one reason could be that the impetus behind their endeavors could never measure up to those of the Jews, who have practically everything in the world to loose should they fail.

Caught in the middle of this tragedy is the poignant and heart-breaking Palestinian issue. Does the world 'really' cares about the Palestinian people? After nearly 60 years of being driven out of their homeland (Palestine) the Palestinian people remain refugees living in their temporary and lawless camps, without legitimate rights of citizenship to any land, and where their shabby existence keep shifting with the sands whenever

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