I can never find it in me to accept the names Ashkelon, Bersheeba or Ashdod. I still refer to them by their Arab names: Asqalan, Beir al sab’ and Isdud. And however hard I try, I can’t find it in me to feel much sympathy for the civilians who live in these towns.To me, Palestine doesn’t symbolize anything, since I don’t identify with it religiously or ethnically as do most Arabs. But it represents one of the greatest injustices in modern history, not unlike the holocaust.

Human relationships are complicated because people are complicated, and politics is often complicated for the same reason: we are all complex people with different backgrounds, interests, hang-ups, desires, dislikes and beliefs. Anyone who has spent even five minutes thinking or talking about Israel, the Arab world, and the Palestinian cause inevitably comes face-to-face with these complexities, the simplifications, the oversimplifications, the value laden judgments and the hopes of what could be…

By Josh Scheinert

It’s on the bus driving in from the West Bank where you really appreciate Jerusalem’s grandeur. The Old City creeps up on you from out the window. The sun, reflecting off the Dome of the Rock is almost blinding. Yet, you can’t look away; you don’t want to. This is it, what it all comes down to – so you want to make sure you take in every last glimpse of this city of gold that ignites so many passions.

By Luke Savage

I am not a Palestinian. Nor am I an Arab. I am neither Jewish nor Israeli. Unlike many of the other voices that speak tonight my family did not come from The Old City or the West Bank, or from the bustling streets of Tel-Aviv. It fought the war on the safe side of the Channel, and not in the ghettoes of Warsaw or on the desert battlefields of El-Alamein. Canada is my land and I speak as a Canadian, whatever a Canadian is. S/he could be anybody, from anywhere; fresh off the plane from Dubai, or an Iroquois whose family has fished in the St Lawrence for a thousand years.

Myth – “A popular belief or story that has become associated with an … institution or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal.”

The following is a collection of short stories about my own myths and those of others I’ve encountered; those of Jews and those of Arabs; and finally, their causes and their consequences.