I once had a neighbor who took umbrage to my living next door to her.  Her kids took to dropping garbage over the adjoining fence into my yard.  They also picked on my two boys, although the older one received the worst of their attention.  I eventually moved away.

Israel has reacted to Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza shooting rockets onto Israeli towns and property.  The truth is that a state of war has existed between the Hamas government and the State of Israel over the mere fact of Israel's existence which most of the Islamic world denies.  It is interesting to watch the world react to this military strike (incursion) into Gaza in order for Israel on its own to seek out the chief perpetrators of the continual bombing of northern Israeli towns. Some right thinking people think there is nothing wrong in their doing this. Some still deny the truth of Israel's existence.  The truth is that holding a "truce" was a lie just giving the Gazans and Hamas time to dig tunnels and to build up its supply of rockets.  The truth is that the Hamas war machine is always situated among civilian populations and Israel must kill innocent citizens in order to get at the real perpetrators of crimes against Israel.

In another instance where the "truth is that I lied to you" is my friend at Temple Sinai, a real survivor of the Holocaust who asked me to read his "true" story about his time in concentration camps and the love story at its end.  The story has real places but in places that could not be as he told it.  I read his story and pronounced it "powerful".  Members of his family and scholars who read the story pronounced much of it false and that his history of his experience could not have happened as he described it.  He had convinced Oprah Winfrey that his was the love story of the century and has written books and a movie is planned. The truth is that he lied to us.

The truth is he did not tell me and to all of us who heard his stories over the years that only part of his story was true.  He had convinced himself that his mother appeared to him in a dream and told him to tell his story.  His lies seemed to be the truth and he profited by them.  He finally admitted that the criticisms by others were truth.  He had lied about not only his experience in the camps but also that the future love affair with a girl who supposedly threw apples over the fence to him helped to keep him alive. The truth is that his story is not true.

It is shameful to have been a part of his sham - the book Is powerful but parts are untrue. The truth is that the Islamic world will not accept Israel on its borders. The truth is that Israel is in a box surrounded by neighbors who would wipe it off the map. Israel's right to defend itself is questioned as much as the many stories about the Holocaust. Herman's distortions are not helpful.

There IS a movie out called The Boy in Striped Pajamas.  Smuel does go by the fence in a Concentration Camp and a German boy speaks to him and they strike up a friendship through the fence.  Food is brought to Smuel and the story has a terrible end but the camp is pictured realistically although the people are fictional. This movie does not lie to us - it tells us truths about a real place and time.

The truth is that we are lied to everyday and it is difficult to separate out reality and wishful thinking.  The Palestinian People and many in the Islamic world are fed a diet of untruths about Israel.            The truth is that the Palestinian State is divided into two parts with Israel in between.  The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is more amenable to friendship with Israel.  In Gaza, Hamas supplied by other Islamic nations, keeps the pot boiling and continues to trample on the truth.