This line from a Jerusalem Post Opinion piece by Larry Derfner raises important questions, even if (precisely because?) it will ruffle many feathers:

There’s a question we Israelis won’t ask ourselves about the Palestinians, especially not about Gaza. The question is taboo. Not only won’t anyone ask it out loud, but very, very few people will dare ask it in the privacy of their own minds….The question we have to ask ourselves is this: If anybody treated us like we’re treating the people in Gaza, what would we do?

As political-historical analysis, he’s way off base – guilty of naiveté at best and willfully misconstruing certain facts at worst. However, as human-psychological analyses, Derfner is spot on. He bravely challenges himself, and all the rest of us to stop arguing about what is “Right”, if only briefly, and allow ourselves a little empathy – not because the other side is necessarily right, but because our own future demands it.
What’s most interesting to me is that peace is made when both the political-historical and the human-psychological kinds of analysis are married. Whatever one thinks of Derfner’s work, working on that marriage is something we all can, and should, do more of, whatever side we are on.