I admit to holding prejudiced thoughts , and to the fact that they are difficult to discard. I attribute it to all those years of Sunday school (which – I’ll have you know – I attended voluntarily right through high school). I attribute it also to legendary movie maker Cecil B. DeMille and his The Ten Commandments, but – most of all – to novelist Leon Uris, who captured me at the age of 13 or 14 and wouldn’t let me go.

One evening, while my aunt browsed the clothing in a small, cramped second-hand shop, Uris’ Exodus caught my eye among the used books. I suppose it was the title, but the cover made it plain it was not going to be like the Bible book of the same name. It absorbed me completely. More to the point, I absorbed it.

So, as time passed and I became less of a self-involved adolescent and began to pay a bit more attention to what else was happening in the world, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict presented a dichotomy with which I had to contend. Even with a fuller understanding of the history and the legitimate grievances of the Palestinians, I still felt a reflexive, visceral need to defend the right of Israel to exist. Even with example after example of Israeli intransigence and transgression, my allegiance remained with them. I know writing this will cause some readers to shake their heads. I understand what is felt in the gut will defy those seeking logic.

I don’t think the Israel-right-or-wrong crowd understands the importance of keeping such supporters. I suspect America, Israel’s greatest ally, has many among its citizenry who feel as I do, but we are a different sort from others here who claim to love that country. For them, Israel has to exist in order to be destroyed, thereby fulfilling Christian prophecy and paving the way for the so-called Second Coming. If that is love, it is love couched in the most callous terms. The rest of us, who would like to see Israel succeed in perpetuity, can envision that success only if we are able to see concrete and equitable measures being taken. It has been much too long since we’ve seen anything like the Camp David Accords.

No doubt, this probably is similar to what Secretary of State John Kerry was trying to convey a few days ago when, speaking in private, he said “A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens — or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.” Who, in their right mind, would dispute this? Not the current Israeli Justice Minister, not even the former prime minister. To a certain crowd in this country, however, the word “apartheid” went off like a bomb. To some in that crowd (read “politicians”), it was faux outrage, an attempt to cause political damage or score political points. To others, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, it seemed to be an affront. Despite the State Department’s spokeswoman reminding everyone that Secretary Kerry “certainly didn’t say ‘is’”, AIPAC’s reaction was to say “Any suggestion that Israel is, or is at risk of becoming, an apartheid state is offensive and inappropriate.” That was mild-mannered compared to some of the vitriol spewed following Kerry’s use of that dreaded word.

There is some irony to be found in this. Before it was decided that Palestine had to be the place for a Jewish homeland, the early Zionists considered (among other places on Earth) the borderlands between Uganda and Kenya as a possibility. It is not that much of a stretch of the imagination to believe that might not have worked out well. Would a form of apartheid have arisen there as a matter of course? South Africa, the country which created that pernicious system in word and deed, was home to some of the first Jewish settlers in Palestine, and its apartheid government was the first to recognize the new state of Israel. Former editor of The New Republic Andrew Sullivan, a man who has said he believes “in the dream of a free and Jewish state in the ancestral homeland,” recently had the temerity to point out that the current situation in Israel “has now lasted a year longer than the apartheid regime in South Africa – and, unlike that regime, looks set to continue indefinitely.” For this, he was taken to task yesterday by writer David Harsanyi in The Federalist, who felt the need to point out that Mr. Sullivan “was famously accused of anti-Semitism a few years back.” Such is the nature of the discourse.

My continued support is based on my hope that Israel will do the right thing, that it realizes it is not in a game of chicken to see who blinks first, that it understands it has to be the bigger “person”. Without that hope, my reflexes lag. I doubt I am alone among supporters in feeling this way. Writers like Uris carried millions of readers to the Promised Land, but Israel has to do its part to stanch our exodus.