Years ago, we lived in Melbourne, Australia, where I befriended a very talented and philosophical Irishman. In the Swallows Pub one day, he mused over a Guiness how the swallow had many enemies, but the most dangerous one wasn’t the eagle, the hawk or the cat – they just wanted to eat him. No, the worst enemy by far was his fellow swallow. He not only wanted to eat his food; he also wanted to steal his wife and occupy his nest. Escaping the hawk was relatively straightforward and involved inspired and frantic flying. But escape from the predatory swallow? Not so fast. Swallows need and rely on other swallows. There is no place to go – they have to stay and slug it out. That’s why they are so dangerous.

With each passing year, his insight made more sense to me. Deadly enemies appear anywhere and anytime – Americans and Japanese, Englishmen and Argentineans, French and Vietnamese. But the most enduring and blood-drenched of feuds occur between the swallows: Shiite and Sunni; Tutsi and Hutu; Tamil and Sri Lankan; Spaniard and Basque.

And what of Israelis and Palestinians? Are they more similar than different? Do they have at least as much hope for reconciliation as do quarreling swallows? It’s not as naïve a question as it sounds. Sure, Palestinians and Israelis have stark political and historical differences, but there also are profound similarities. Recent studies show how Palestinians have absorbed a wide spectrum of Western preferences from their Israeli neighbors over the years, ranging from dress and healthcare to eventual parliamentary systems. There is a shared love for the same blood-soaked holy soil. There is a passion for religious context that is unique to the region, and both groups share parallel everyday religious/secular struggles (Halal? Kosher? McDonald’s?). Most civilians on both sides cherish family above all – a September 2007 poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion showed that 73.8 percent of Palestinians place family well-being as their top priority. If peace ever comes, it may very well flow from the pressures exerted by loving parents in both Israel and Palestine. They are the ones who want their children to grow up to be happy, to have good jobs, get married and get rich – and are willing to compromise to get to those goals. Like swallows.

In contrast, the ones that bring such grief of late to the Houston Jewish community do not share those goals. They are the hawks. They are the aloof professors, the politically active retired Persian Gulf oil workers and the angry far-left activists. These take no prisoners; they demand nothing short of full “justice” on their terms, no matter how much Palestinian or Israeli blood is shed, no matter how many generations are lost. In that sense, they are no different from the Arab countries that have betrayed the Palestinians over the years, or the militant Islamists that put their global ambitions way ahead of the common good. Perhaps the most annoying ones are the retired international oil workers, whose agendas have little to do with getting Palestinian children grown, educated, married and rich. Rather, what drives them is fighting “the good fight” against the injustice of their real enemies – depicted stereotypically as the manipulative Jewish lobby, the all-powerful Jewish bankers and the sinister Jewish-dominated media. They are not the champions of peace; they do not offer solutions. Rather, they inflate self-destructive Palestinian myths that Israel can and should be destroyed, that compromise is not needed. They give Palestinians the resolve simply to wait the Israelis out, to hope for the day that they have defeated Israel by worldwide delegitimization.

If the Jews were the Palestinians’ prime enemy, then this might be a good strategy, but they aren’t. The real enemies of the Palestinians include the Chinese and the Indians, whose children are staking claim on the future, while Palestinian children learn how to throw rocks, despise their neighbors and fire Qassam rockets. The real enemies are the Muslim brotherhood and their offspring, from Gaza to Lebanon, who seek to impose Sharia law in place of freedom and growth. The real enemies are the Arab regimes that have betrayed Palestinian interests from 1948 onward, and that continue to refuse to provide constructive support unless it fits their own aims. The real enemies are the far left with their double standards of justice, their blindness to common sense and reason. And most of all, their immediate enemy is Iran, whose passion for regional hegemony will soon target nuclear missiles on greater Israel/Palestine – to kill them all and let God sort them out.

We have entered a period in Houston where unbridled anti-Israel and anti-Jewish talk is acceptable in certain quarters. It is easy to become paranoid, and believe that it’s us against them, again. But it’s not. What we are witnessing is an opportunistic alliance of disparate groups that seek to achieve their own unique aims at the expense of the Jewish state, and with disregard to the plight of the Palestinians. The message that we need to carry to the lectures and the forums is that we plan to stay focused on what is truly important, namely a lasting peace for the children of Israel and Palestine. My friend was wrong after all: The most dangerous enemy is not the other swallow. It’s still the hawk.