Your grandfather sounds interesting– I definitely would like to know more about that– have his papers been published?

It’s an old problem, I agree; my ancestor wrote a monograph on what he saw as the solution for Europe and the Middle East. In his missive, he argued for the reconstitution of a united Poland, and the rebirth of Palestine as a Jewish homeland. This was in the 1890s, so while he wasn’t an early Zionist, he definitely was a proponent of some of the “solutions” that emerged later, after World War I. So it’s not just fifty years… some of these ideas and conflicts have been floating around for at least a hundred years, but things didn’t exacerbate until after World War I, and definitely snowballed after World War II.

My goodness. This is turning into another post– perhaps I’ll do one soon (and invite the wrath of the whirlwind, I suppose…).

While doing research on my article on the deaf in the Middle East, I discovered that there are some deaf people on either side, Israeli or Arab, who’d like to see peace and who don’t actually have problems with each other. Then there are some deaf people on either side who see problems with each other, who think the other is the “enemy.” The situation is really very complicated than we think, and it goes a long way back, over the span of fifty years.

Sometimes after my break I’ll comment on this issue and link to your article, as well as perhaps share some of my late grandfather’s writings (he was a diplomat who was involved on the American team in negotiations between the Jews and the Arabs prior to Israeli independence in 1948), which I think has a more balanced view of the history behind the Middle East conflict. This would be of interest to history students, whether deaf or hearing.

Keep up good writing!