I'll accept your shalom even though I'm not Jewish.
This particular case started the second intifada.
Does that register?
I do not condone everything and anything Israel does, however it's unbelievable that in the eyes of the obvious A.S. here on Hotcopper (I'm sure you're not one of them) Israel can do no right and is responsible for all the ills of the Middle East.
I read an interesting blog the other night which is very apt although the second last para para does not apply to you, but certainly does to many other posters on the forum.
See below.
Cheers
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I dont imagine you are too interested in hearing other points of view or looking at the complexities, but you seem to be ignorant of the range of reason why Israel is unable to simply withdraw from the territories – Carlo Strenger explains in today’s Haaretz that Israel is in well, a rough neighbourhood (See Assad)
“At times, when I hear some of the critical comments on Israel, one might think that Israel is Belgium, and that for unintelligible reasons it keeps attacking helpless Luxembourg.
Israel’s critics would do well for the sake of fairness and integrity to acknowledge that it quite frightening to live in a neighborhood in which dictators kill at the scale of the Assad family. Because Israelis wonder: what if these guys, one day, win against us? What exactly will they do to women and children here, if they kill their own? And some of Israel’s critics conveniently forget that Hamas, which in the past won Palestinian elections, has been Assad’s protégé until it decided recently that it is wiser for it not to be seen as supporting him.
Most Israelis are not ideological right-wingers. To this day two-thirds of Israel’s Jews believe that the two-state solution is the only chance for peace. But they are afraid to move ahead with it: what will happen if we go for the two-state solution, and Hamas, vowing to destroy Israel, will come to power again?
They want assurances that scenarios like the shelling of southern Israel will not be repeated in Israel’s heartland; and nobody can give such assurances as long as Hamas doesn’t explicitly renounce armed struggle against Israel and recognize Israel’s legitimacy.”
Strenger is a feirce critic of the current government and believes its policies have played a huge part in the failure of the peace process but there is no point or dignity in discussing this issue with you when you seem totally blind to the reality of the choices that Israel faces.
And the reference to Syria here is not to deflect and to say – see its worse there, but to explain to you that the Middle East is not the Sunshine Coast.
