I want to snark about this SO HARD. I really do. Then I think about all the Palestinians being wiped out in a recapitulation of what happened 70 years ago and I shut myself up.

Why do I want to snark? Because I went to a predominantly Jewish university. I wasted my frosh year in a dorm that I avoided like the plague. After about five times of hearing "but the U.S. will never be on the opposite side of Israel" as a mantra, I... ummm... I wanted something treyf.

I got tired of hearing someone bash my home land for being insufficiently like someone else's home land. We all grew up in the same state but came from different planets.

I was lucky that the heavily political Jewish students stuck to certain dorms. I wound up where the non-religious ones hung out -- the radio station, gaming, stuff like that.

I also made friends with a guy that had already done his time in the Israeli army and concluded that he preferred Arabs and their coffee. He liked Israel, but the way you like your home town -- it's not perfect, is doesn't even have to be great, and it needs to be criticized to be made better. It's not heaven, eh?