Following a thread from Allah (now the newly anointed Allahpundit - fix your links please) I found this over at LGF.
Most of the comments are blasting Israel for being pushovers and giving into the demands of the PLO and their various terrorist factions.
Obviously anyone capable of murdering a baby at point blank range should be severely tortured and killed, but I don't see how fair it is to blame Israel for the constant brutality of the Palestinian terrorist mentality.
One day Sharon is being skewered for being bloodthirsty and ruthlessly killing Hamas members, which invariably means sustaining collateral damage within the regular Palestinian community, and the next he is basically being called a pussy. The "national identity" crisis that was being repeated by lots of people in that thread is much easier identified than it is understood.
Israel's situation is more complex than the average lay person can imagine. We are dealing with a scenario that changes from day to day, and depends on so many outside factors, that to make a concrete game plan (or peace plan for that matter) and stick with it, is almost impossible.
I can't speak for the whole of the Israeli population, but as someone who has discussed at great lengths the situation with current and past Israeli citizens, as well as my own Jewish family members, it isn't so black and white. As a born Jew, I am constantly at war with the instinctual need to feel overly protective and fight for self-preservation, while maintaining the need to see the whole picture. As any group who has been persecuted for thousands of years will tell you, the will to survive and the paranoia of being judged for your faith is a strong force to reckon with.
But conversely, within the Jewish faith lies the very beguiling power of revenge, Jews are also taught to individually overcome that desire and instead TRY to understand the enemy and appease their needs as well. A dichotomy of ideologies are consistently at work. Revenge vs. empathy - try reconciling that.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Very thoughtful Dawn, thanks - you convey the vice-like squeeze the country is under. Best wishes to them.
2 - debbie
Good post.
I agree that when it comes to their defense nobody should tell them what they should do. That is something that they should decide on their own.
We aren't allowing others to decide what we are allowed to do to defend ourselves. We shouldn't interfere with another country's means of self defense.
3 - JR
How much of Israel's defense are we paying for?
And how much of that defense is really just a land grab on the part of an extremist minority that controls the Israeli government right now? Perhaps Israel is its own biggest enemy.
4 - siccari
Perhaps the land grab happened a while back like when Omar conquered Israel, or before that when the Byzantines declared the country "Palestina" after some nice ehtnic clensing of those pesky jews. Perhaps the jews are not willing to negotiate another lease with ethnic clensers ;> Perhaps you feel better that the US gives Egypt 2B a year to supply palestinians with arms through their coastal watters and their tunnels in the Sinnai? Or perhaps you feel that extremism means it's ok that the Arab world is jew free (It's illigal for Jews (as well a Christians) to live openly (much less practice vocally) as Jews in places such as Saudi Arabia. Perhaps to you collateral damage is identical with designed extermination of another people via terrorism today or WMD tomorrow. I think you are a dull tool, please go back to the toolshed and sharpen yourself.