Not only was there no massacre in Jenin, it now seems like things in the Church of the Nativity happened the way Israel has claimed all along as well. Behold this.

The boys that Israel has claimed all along to be hostages indeed seem to be pretty happy to have left the company of their compatriots, and judging by the looks on their faces quite comfortable to be surrounded by Israelis. Haven't heard about this on the news, other than that some people have come out. I want to hear some acknowledgement that Israel was right all along. But no one cares, and no one will remember.

 
Victim of one's success
I am Jewish, so it would be natural for me to support Israel. But infact, when I was younger I thought it was horrible what they were doing to the Palestinians, that they should stop, etc. As I grew older, perhaps less liberal, and studied the subject more, my view had to shift.

I think it's natural for us to think the Palestinians are victims. They are the "little guy" and they don't have anything. So they must be fighting because they're deprived of human status, they must be fighting because there's no other way.

The fallacy of the above is that we are liberal westerners and it's hard for us to think that any people would chose fighting and violence over peace and prosperity. It's impossible for us to really relate to the fact that Palestinians would rather fight and live in poverty than accept co-existance, which will bring security and prosperity. So we can't wrap our heads around their behaviour other than to label it as desperate. We can't accept that they stick to a leader that will bring fight and hate rather than a promise of peace, so we look for excuses and justifications. We simply can't imagine people being so different from us, and thus we're likely to ask ourselves: "what would make ME act this way?" The question leads to no answer except that Israel is inherently evil, bad, etc.

This logic really assumes that the Palestinians are part of the same culture we are. It may not be so. Plenty of good arguments have been made that they're a culture of death and hate, and their rationalle is imposible for the west to relate to. Think of it this way: if I told you that someone ate a human being, you'd likely assume that this person was insane, or starving, because you'd ask yourself "what would it take for me to resort to that?" But history tells us that plenty of Pacific people had a culture of canibalism, where they did this kind of stuff and it was perfectly normal. I hope you get the point - just because it would take a certain amount of provocation for us to act a certain way, doesn't mean that it takes the same for another culture.

It has come to be that Arab violence against Israel is seen as an indication Israel's brutality - what else would make Arabs want to kill? But Israel's actions are generally painted as agression, not defense. When we hear on the news about the latest Israeli action, the most "balanced" reports will contrast and compare it to the latest Arab attack. But few discuss the fact that the action of the last few weeks was the first Israely response in a long time, while suicide bombings have gone on forever. The news likes to assault you with body counts, whereas contexts of what happened usually gets ignored. The headline is more likely to say "Israel Surrounds Arafat's Componud" than "Arafat Shelters 6 Killers Wanted for Murder of Israely Minister in His Compound."

It's natural, in conclusion, to feel bad for the poor little Palestinians deprived of their homeland by the rich big fat jews. It takes quite a bit of research to understand things to be a little [a lot] more complex than that.