Of course, most of the soldier didn't volunteer such remarks and probably considered themselves charitable to the Palestinians, given the circumstances. One soldier who detained us for half an hour bragged about all the food and medicine he'd allowed through. He couldn't understand what the Palestinians were still complaining about. I asked him where he was from.

"Tel Aviv."

"So if armed Palestinians invaded Tel Aviv, shut the entire population in their homes, and allowed aid workers to bring around food and medicine, you wouldn't complain?"

He said that was different. I asked how. He changed the subject. I asked him how long he was going to punish my colleague and me by detaining us on the street. He said he wasn't punishing us, that we just had to wait a little while, which was normal. I asked:

"So if armed Palestinians stopped you outside your house, demanded your ID, and prevented you from going to work, you would consider that normal?" He changed the subject again.

An interesting conversation, indeed. Cognitive dissonance is indeed a universal affect.