The avowal of human rights as a political, religious, and moral philosophy, and as an ideal that governs the relationship between groups and individuals, has had a long and mixed history.

In the wake of the recent "discovery" of a chemical weapons plant in Libya and a biological weapons plant in Iraq, the need for Israel's pre-emptive strategy and maintenance of military superiority has now come into renewed focus.

For years, the conventional wisdom about the Middle East has been that peace between Israel and the Palestinians was unlikely in the foreseeable future.  

Even before Secretary General Gorbachev came to power, the Soviet leadership had concluded that severing diplomatic relations with Israel in 1967 to placate its Arab clients was a major political mistake. It locked the Soviets into policies and commitments towards their Arab clients from which they could not easily extract themselves.

Two thousand years of pogroms and persecutions culminating in the Nazi holocaust contributed immeasurably to Jewish thinking and behavior after World War II.