The Rev. Neal MacPherson's “;Island Commentary”; of Feb. 24 (”;Israel deserves right to exist, but not at Palestinians' expense,”; Star-Bulletin) claims that he and his colleagues in the Hawaii chapter of the Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) desire “;peace and security for Israel and also justice for the Palestinians.”;

Sounds eminently reasonable, as would be peace and security for the Palestinians and also justice for the Israelis.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, FOSNA's Web site and foundational documents belie such claims as they persistently blame only Israel for the violence and instability in the region and continue to demand that only Israel admit wrongdoings and compensate in various ways the Palestinian people.

That compensation includes granting Palestinians a “;right of return,”; which would essentially destroy Israel as a Jewish state and nation. Ironically, MacPherson's goals are not dissimilar from the Christian Zionists that he so easily mocks. Neither has much interest in saving Jewish lives.

There is no mention by FOSNA of Palestinian responsibility for violence and instability, either historical or contemporary terms. No mention of Palestinian hatred for Israelis and Jews, or of Palestinian militarism.

Seemingly in FOSNA's view of the world, militarism and hatred are on one side of the border; innocence and peace-loving reside on the other. One only wishes that the world were so simple.

In fact, both sides share the good, the bad and the ugly. Both sides have their militarists. Both sides have their hate-mongers. Both sides want the same thing for themselves in the same relatively tiny corner of the world. Each wishes that the other would simply vanish in the wind and knows that will not happen.

Enduring peace, security and justice requires negotiation and compromise; it does not result from diatribes about Israeli “;expansion”; and “;Jewish Zionists;”; it does not result from the Palestinian inability to denounce and curb terrorism or armed attacks on both Jews and those that Hamas and others consider “;collaborators.”;

Israel needs to withdraw from many of its settlements as it has from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Israel needs to protect and encourage the participation of Arabs and other non-Jews within its own borders. Israel needs to take care of its own other compelling internal matters, such as poverty—something that the Palestinians ought to take care of within their own borders rather than focusing on Israelis and Jews.

We living overseas do neither side any long-term good by criminalizing one or the other, and making that one or the other the No. 1 issue, and thus, in fact, an excuse to avoid difficult and important internal matters.

In the end, Israel has a legitimate right to exist for many different reasons, something that many Palestinians and their leaders continue to be reluctant to admit in public among themselves.

It is, in fact not, Zionists who view the Palestinians as “;dispensable,”; but so many Palestinians and their allies who view the Israelis and Jews as dispensable. Israelis have a right to exist and to develop their own democratic society; ditto for the Palestinians.

The Friends of Sabeel say that they recognize Israel and that they want peace, but their public statements and their official documents tell a different story. They want justice on their own one-sided terms. Making Israel the only villain in their melodrama and the Palestinians the only victims does neither side any good. The Palestinians have a right to their own legitimate, functioning state and nation, but not at the expense of Israel, Jews, justice, peace and the truth.

We have been down the deceptively straight road paved and trodden by MacPherson and his colleagues many times. It remains a dead end, a road strewn with wrecked dreams and bodies.

Peter Hoffenberg of Hawaii Kai is an associate professor of history at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.