The American Jewish filmmaker told me he was doing a documentary on possible answers to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- one state or two -- and human-rights issues. When he showed up at my Jerusalem apartment on a recent afternoon to interview me, he was wearing a beret. His wife and producer wore a maxi skirt; a scarf covered her hair. Their attire showed they were Orthodox Jews. Hers, in particular, fit the stereotyped look of the Israeli religious right, of settlers and their supporters, including some Jews abroad. I was surprised. Maybe, I thought, I was the token leftist interviewee in a project by settlement backers aimed at showing that there is no exit from the conflict and that Israel must hold the West Bank forever.

"We didn't see a single house that was not hit. The entire infrastructure, tracks, fields, roads -- was in total ruin," an anonymous soldier says, describing his days in the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli incursion last winter. "Nothing much was left in our designated area … A totally destroyed city ... The few houses that were still inhabitable were taken by the army … there were lots of abandoned, miserable animals." The destruction continued daily, he testifies, though Palestinians -- fighters and civilians -- had fled the area.