George Orwell, English essayist, novelist and satirist, once said: "If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them."

Helmy Mostafa and Joseph Kastner (Viewpoints ran March 31) share several things in common. The most glaring is a love of run on sentences laced with extreme vitriol. Another glaring commonality is an utter lack of care for the historical accuracy of their claims.

Kastner claims "'Palestine' was never a nation but instead a loose association of Arab tribes placed under the yoke of the Nazi regime during WWII." That was a huge surprise to me, considering that in WWII that German Army never made it out of western Egypt. The Palestinians as an ethnicity is actually tightly bound up in the Zionist settlements at the end of the 19th century. The identity of Zionist and Palestinian were born together and like Esau and Jacob, they still are fighting over who owns the birthright. Blame the British, who had the mandate from 1917, after Allenby conquered Jerusalem. Previous to that, the Ottomans pursued a policy of not so benign neglect. If he wants to lecture on the truth, maybe he needs to read a history book and get his facts right.

Mostafa asks "was the Holocaust self-defense?" "Maybe yes," his reply. Aside from the sheer lunacy of justifying the murder of 12 million "undesirables" (Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs) can he in all honor come up with a scenario that justifies mass murder? As long as he views the world through a historical schema that considers the Holocaust justifiable, no Jew, Zionist or otherwise, should sit down and negotiate with him or those who share his worldview. I have the sneaking suspicion that if I asked him which parts of Israel are illegally occupied, his response would be "all of it."

Both demonstrate a fervent belief in their version of the truth. Both are glaringly wrong about the facts upon which they build those truths. And that is probably why peace will be a long time coming.

Michael Klotz is a graduate student in bioinformatics, with a B.A. in history.

This viewpoint appeared in The Marquette Tribune on April 7 2005.