"The unnerving tensions, the nonlinearity and palimpsest-like quality of even Wikipedia’s bad articles on the Arab-Israeli conflict are a generally more balanced introduction than most accounts written by one person."

Can someone explain why balance is a virtue? Is it always seen as such? In discussions of, e.g., slavery? Some of us believe that a "balanced" picture would do violence to reality, in much the same way as evangelical insistence that creationism be taught alongside evolution as comparable options does violence to the way things are.

Obviously, Joey, you accept this principle in other circumstances (e.g., you don't call for balance re the Armenian-Turkish question-or even accept that there's a question at all). Is the I-P conflict different in kind, innately undecidable, doomed to remain in permanent equipoise?

Some of us believe that there's a bad guy in the I-P conflict. It's fine to disagree with us, but to announce that, unlike most other big issues, this one needs to genuflect to some wishy-washy notion of balance just seems avoidant.