My wife and I went out to eat recently and sat beside a friendly older couple visiting from Massachusetts. “What do you do?” he asked us. “I am a rabbi.” “So, what do you think of Israel’s pullout from Gaza?” he asked.

I answered, as I wrote in my last Voices article, that, while I supported the pullout, I was not optimistic that this difficult act by Israel to help support the establishment of a Palestinian state would help lead to peace.

He responded, “Both sides are like intractable pillars.” I told him I could not understand how anyone could say that. After all, Israel had just moved 10,000 of its citizens from their homes to put all of Gaza under Palestinian rule. This action does not describe a state which is an “intractable pillar.”

Sadly, however, our fellow diner’s viewpoint is shared by many people worldwide.

The only buildings left standing in Gaza by Israel were about two dozen synagogues. The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, decided to leave these buildings in hopes that interfaith dialogue and peace discussions between the Palestinians and Israelis would take place there.

However, on the first day that the Palestinians marched into these former Israeli villages, at least four of these synagogues were burned down. The former Israeli villages also established farms and greenhouses. These greenhouses were bought for the future use of the Palestinians. The hope is that these farms and greenhouses will remain functioning and help produce jobs and food for the Palestinians as they once did for the Israelis who built them.

Israel is no longer occupying Gaza. It is now up to the Palestinians to determine their own future. Israel and much of the world are hopeful that the Palestinian Authority will be able to police and control Gaza. However, Hamas, a group that is classified as a terrorist organization by America and Israel, is asserting its control over Gaza and has its own separate militia which the Palestinian Authority is not yet able to control.

Hamas does not recognize Israel or Israel’s right to exist. Hamas is continuing to attack Israel and is causing a deep rift within the Palestinian people, as well. After all, most people want jobs and food and peace. The Palestinian Authority represents the elected representatives of the Palestinians.

Hamas is vying for power by retaining its own militia and by challenging the Palestinian Authority’s right to rule. The situation is very challenging now for both Israel and the Palestinians themselves.

Israel is a country and a people who have made a desert come to bloom. Israel is a high-tech, educated, democratic, egalitarian country with a free press, free elections and freedom of religion (over 1 million of its citizens are Arab Muslims). Israel has so much to offer her neighbors and our world and is contributing so much to improve our world. Medical advancements, high-tech innovations, agricultural development and desalination plants are some of the many areas in which Israel helps improve our lives.

All of us are refugees. The sad crisis in New Orleans gives us a daily reminder of this fact. All of us in America are refugees, implants from Europe and Africa. Even the natives who lived here before any Europeans were here were refugees from Asia, having traveled here via the Bering Strait.

We Jews trace our roots to Abraham, who settled in Canaan, or Israel, about 4,000 years ago from Babylonia, modern Iraq.

Jews always remained in Israel from that time on. Three thousand years ago, King David established Jerusalem as our capital city. Over the past 2,000 years, the large majority of the Jewish population has lived in the Diaspora, outside the land of Israel.

After the catastrophe of the Shoah, the Holocaust, many Jewish refugees returned to Israel. In 1948, the modern state of Israel was established. The United Nations recognized Israel as an independent nation among the family of nations. Over the next 10 years, 800,000 Arab Jews moved to Israel from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Turkey and other Arab countries.

Hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world, including Europe, Russia, Ethiopia, Argentina and America, have returned to our Jewish homeland. The modern state of Israel is made up of some Jews whose ancestors have always lived in Israel and many Jews who have returned to Israel from all over our world.

We are all refugees. Israel seeks to live in peace with her neighbors and help make our world a more peaceful, educated, democratic and healthy place. My hope is that Israel’s neighbors will join in this human challenge to understand that all of us are refugees; all of us deserve to live in peace.

Rabbi Barry Krieger is the rabbinic facilitator for the Hillel organization at the University of Maine in Orono. He may be reached via bkrieger56@aol.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.