Actually I’m more sad than angry. It’s hard to be angry when people with the best of intentions act destructively because they don’t know any better.

They’re trying to live a myth. In ancient times the Israelites overran the territory we now call Israel, or Palestine, and occupied it for many centuries. Much later, Muslims overran North Africa and the Middle East, including the same territory the Israelites had formerly occupied, and occupied it themselves for centuries, in spite of the efforts of Christian Crusaders to dislodge them.

That’s factual, not mythical. What’s mythical is that each of these groups believed that they had a God-given right to overrun and occupy this territory. Many of their modern descendants still believe the same myth. It’s ingrained in their hearts and souls that the land is theirs.

Never mind that the fall of Jericho was thousands of years ago, or the last Crusades were hundreds of years ago. These events are symbolic of a deeply, firmly held love for a spiritual homeland that no diplomats in Oslo or Camp David can undermine.

Jewish tradition holds that the whole of what they call the Land of Israel, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, belongs to them. The Palestinians hold to the Muslim tradition that the same land, which they prefer to call Palestine, belongs to them. Both can’t rule the same  land, and giving up part of it is out of the question.

A few reasonable people in both groups realize that living in the modern world demands either partition or joint rule. But there are enough militant activists on each side (called extremists by the other side) to make life hazardous or even miserable for everybody. And so many people believe the myth, even if they don’t act on it, that it’s politically impossible to stop the activists.

When will the foolishness end? Not soon.