My words have been twisted to seem antisemitic | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

My own one visit to Israel had the paradoxical effect of causing me to sympathise more with both sides. I have no doubt at all that if the Arabs around had a chance to massacre every Israeli between the Jordan and the sea, they would take it. I have watched the way the young men looked at the soldiers after they had passed through the alleys of the Old City. I don’t doubt that if I were a Palestinian I would watch them in just the same way. By the same token I quite understand, now, too, why the Israelis dare not trust the Palestinians and why the soldiers look around them the way that they do.

As Conor Cruise O’Brien remarked, we need to distinguish between problems and conflicts. Problems have solutions. Conflicts have outcomes. Israel/Palestine is a conflict, not a problem, and I can’t make myself believe in any final outcome that will not involve ethnic cleansing, attempted genocide, or both.