FWIW, Lisa, I think the translation is pretty faithful. Nice job! Of course it's natural for the left to side with the Palestinians. The left naturally sees injustices and roots for the underdog. The left also rails against what it sees as ingrained thought, and for decades the ingrained thought was "those poor Jews/Israelis". So the left naturally will question and say "wait a minute". When Israel was in fact the underdog, the left did in fact side with Israel. The thing that is hard to explain to most lefties, of course, is that if Israel wasn't on top, it would be gone. While the injustices the Palestinians have suffered (like 1948) and continue to suffer (the occupation) are real and deserving of condemnation, Israel has real concerns about the kind of state Palestine would be, and how threatening it would be to Israel. There's too much Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim rhetoric about "evil Israel" and "destroy Israel" and "kill the Jews" accompanying the valid cries of "we have no basic human rights". Whether the threat to Israel is Israel's fault or not is irrelevant, because it's where Israel is. Whether it's a majority of Palestinians or not who will settle for nothing less than seeing Israel disappear is also irrelevant, because indisputably it's a critical mass. Sure, Israel is on top, but it sits on a cauldron of dangerous rage that threatens to metastasize into a Jewish naqba, if given the power. Too many lefties don't see this, or won't see this. I'm torn, as a lefty, because I see Israel oppressing a people who in fact are potentially dangerous. Is the oppression of a people the only way Israel can stay alive? Sure, I see Israel crossing lines too often. But I also know that a Palestinian state (which I support for demographic reasons), and certainly the nonsense of a one-state solution, will hardly bring peace and safety to Israeli Jews. The only way to have lefties understand the dilemma Israel faces is to frame it in terms that recognize the oppression of the Palestinians. Not enough Israel defenders are willing to do it (mostly because they are not willing to see *any* claims of Palestinians as legitimate ). I usually say: think about all the awful things that Israel has done to the Palestinians. Isn't it only natural that they would want revenge? How would Israeli Jews be safe in a scenario (such as a one-state solution) where they were suddenly the minority at the mercy of the very people they oppressed? Or even next door to a state with an army with an ax to grind (i.e. 1948/refugees)? Of course, the lefty will accuse me of racism, and point to South Africa's post-apartheid success. But, of course, Palestinians are not black South Africans. They have no Nelson Mandela to calm the rage. Or, at least, the Nelson Mandelas are not taken seriously by the street (viz. Sari Nusseibeh, Hanan Ashrawi). So what is a lefty Zionist or lefty Israeli to do? Struggle with the issues. Recognize what everything is, with open eyes. See the real suffering of the Palestinians, and the real fears of the Israelis. And possibly, as I've done above, try to reframe the precariousness of Israel's situation in terms of the natural reaction of an oppressed people. To show that if Palestinians were finally empowered, that what happened to the Palestinians in 1948 could just as much, if not worse, happen to the Jews. And two wrongs don't make a right.