sidential elections, was subjected to a little foreign policy quiz by a Boston TV reporter, he did not know the names of two leaders, among others, who represented about one-fifth of humanity...the leaders of Pakistan and India.

Most Americans don't know that such was the state of the awareness of a man about to be handed over the reins of the most awesome military machine of the most powerful country on planet earth.

Most Americans don't know that their country's foreign policy has been held hostage to the well-being of the state of Israel for about 40 years, and all the world's major crises, including the so called 'War on Terror,' can be traced, one way or the other, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and America's extremely partisan Israel- centric role in that.

Most Americans don't know that a large section of American diplomatic and military experts have long held the view that U.S. support of Israel is often contrary to and, in fact, enormously damaging to U.S. interests.

Most Americans don't know that this blind allegiance to the tiny state of Israel, apart from increasingly endangering American lives, hurts America's relations with 1.2 billion Muslims world-wide and bleeds off the much-needed resources from domestic American requirements to fight a shadow 'war on terror' that is contrary to American principles of equality, democracy and fairplay.

Most Americans, in fact, don't know the ABCs of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

Consider the following.

Most Americans don't know that for 2,000 years there was no such conflict, and that the land of Palestine was inhabited by Palestinian Arabs, and that in 1850 these consisted of approximately 80 percent Muslims, 15 percent Christians, and only 5 percent Jews, and that for centuries these groups had lived in absolute accord.

Most Americans don't know that in the late 1800s a fanatic minority group of the world Jewish population in Europe, known as the "Zionists," decided to colonize this land to create a Jewish homeland, and at first considered locations in Africa and South America, before finally setting their sights on Palestine for their colony.

Most Americans don't know that at first this immigration created no problems, but when the extremist group's designs for an exclusive Jewish state started surfacing, fighting between the Muslims and Jews broke out, with swelling waves of violence.

Most Americans don't know that when finally in 1947 the United Nations did decide to intervene, under considerable pressure from high-placed American Zionists, the UN randomly divided up Palestine rather than adhering to the democratic principle of "self- determination of peoples," and ended up giving away 55 percent of Palestine to a Jewish state despite the fact that this group by then represented only about 30 percent of the total population, and owned under 7 percent of the land.

Most Americans don't know that when the inevitable Arab-Israeli war of 1948 broke out, the Zionist army consisted of over 90,000 European-trained soldiers and possessed modern weaponry, including up-to-date fighter and bomber airplanes, while the Arab forces, very much a third-world army, consisted of approximately 30,000 ill- equipped, poorly trained men, leaving the outcome in little doubt.

Most Americans don't know that by the end of that war the Jewish state, having now declared itself "Israel," had conquered 78 percent of Palestine far more than that proposed even by the very generous UN partition plan and three-quarters of a million Palestinians had been made refugees. Over 400 towns and villages had been destroyed and a new map was being drawn up, in which every city, river and hillock would receive a new, Hebrew name and, according to that plan, all traces of the Palestinian culture were to be erased. In fact, for many decades, Israel and the US, following its lead denied the very existence of this population, and Golda Meir once even proclaimed that: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian. "

Most Americans don't know that in 1967 in the Six Day War Israel conquered still more land and occupied the additional 22 percent of Palestine that had eluded it in 1948 the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and that it also occupied parts of Egypt (which since were returned) and Syria (which remain under occupation).

Most Americans don't know that currently, out of the two core issues in this continuing and growing Middle Eastern conflict, the first one is of the inescapably detrimental effect of trying to maintain an ethnically preferential state, by the Zionist group of colonial origin, in a land once comprised of 95 percent Muslim and Christian peoples, many of whom are not being allowed to return to their homes in the current "Jewish state to the extent that the Israeli peace negotiators refuse to even discuss the possibility of applying this

UN-guaranteed right.

Most Americans don't know that the second core issue is of Israel 's continued confiscation of Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza, and the resistance to that by the Palestinian inhabitants, and that it is these occupied territories that, according to the Oslo peace accords of 1993, were going to become a Palestinian state; and that when Israel continued to take land in these areas and to move its citizens onto it, the Palestinian population rebelled, and that uprising is called the "Intifada" (Arabic for "shaking off"), which began at the end of September 2000 and continues to this day.

Most Americans don't know that since the start of the Intifada, 121

Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 786 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis and 1,084 Israelis and 4,171 Palestinians have been killed, 7,633 Israelis and 30,670 Palestinians have been injured; and that zero Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians and 4,170 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel.

Most Americans don't know that the U.S. gives $15,139,178 per day to the Israeli government and military and $232,290 per day to Palestinian NGOs; and that the Israeli unemployment rate is 8.9%, while the Palestinian unemployment is estimated at 25-31%.

Most Americans don't know that just one Israeli is being held prisoner by Palestinians, while 9,599 Palestinians are currently imprisoned by Israel, and that 60+ new Jewish-only settlements have been built on confiscated Palestinian land between March 2001 and July 11, 2003, and that there have been zero cases of Palestinians confiscating Israeli land and building settlements.

Most Americans don't know that not all the world Jewry supports the noxious policies of the Zionist group running the state of Israel, and that in fact, as recently as September 21, a group of Anti- Zionist Orthodox Jewish Rabbis met with President Ahmadinejad of Iran to discuss matters of mutual interest.

Above all, most Americans don't know that Israel has had 65 UN resolutions passed against it in its atrocious past and the Palestinians have none.

Now if most Americans do not know what most Americans must know, should most of the world now call the US as the Ignoram US?