Of course, it’s not surprising that the comments produced no ideas about how to reduce tensions. The conflict is too big to be solved on a blog. It would be a sign of hope, thogh, if people could reach some understanding of the complexity instead of just jurling insults and accusations.

I have always advocated that when the Palestinians blow up a bus, build the Palestinians a school. When they lob rockets into Israel, build them a hospital. When they hurl insults give them aid and comfort.

I sympathize with the idea, but taken literally this would seem to produce a perverse incentive to conduct more attacks in order to get more stuff. It reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where the boss announced a new policy to reward the programmers for finding bugs in their code and Wally walked away happily saying, “I’m going to code me a new minivan this afternoon.”

If you want to support Israel, demonstrate how to do it with reason and respect for others.

domajot,

I feel like I tried to do that way earlier in this thread, but such attempts mostly just get buried and lost when a threat erupts into flame wars. Unfortunately, in the blogosphere, flames can completely eclipse non-flames. The result is a perverse incentive towards flame tactics — it’s sometimes the only way to be sure that people will keep reading your arguments. :+)

I agree, it is sad and perplexing.

There is something odd in my own experience that I don’t understand. I can talk more openly and rationally with my Israeli fiends living in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv than I can with anyone in the US. We agree a lot, but when we don’t, I’ve never once been called an ‘anti-semite’ or an Israel hater by an Israeli. Yet, my friends are the ones living under the pressure, every day

You create more haters with every rant and tirade.
If you want to support Israel, demonstrate how to do it with reason and respect for others.

The true enemy in all of this is not the Palestinian people but the leaders who are filled with hate. The Palestinian people are no different then most human beings.

Go directly to the people and bypass the leaders. Let the Palestinian people see who is feeding, clothing and giving them shelter and comfort.

Look at how popular Hezzbollah is in Southern Lebanon. Why? Because they are taking care of the people.

Israel is, by comparison, more worthy of support than groups that (1) intentionally target civilians thousands of times and (2) are openly committed to genocide against Israel.

Obviously, but you won’t hear that from the Israel-haters (often also US-haters). You instead encounter the dishonesty that Israel is equally as bad as its evil enemies, or even that Israel is worse!

It’s amusing to speculate on what the reaction would be if Israel became the same as its enemies. What if Israel ceased to play fair, and deliberately inhibit itself when dealing with its enemies, and ceased to follow the laws of war in the battlefield and ceased to be democratic, modern, and peace-seeking? What if it started to arrange for not merely terrorists and complicit government officials, but anybody, to start being bombed en masse in markets and stores seemingly at random? What if it dumped chemicals on the Territories? What if it shot rockets and artillery with the deliberate intention of killing, maiming, and frightening people who intended them no harm, as its enemies have long done?

Would Israel-and-US-haters even understand the difference?

Israel has a serious image problem these days.

Plenty of us can distinguish the truth from the lies and slander behind Israel’s “serious image problem.”

Given how many things going wrong in our own country, I’m baffled by the amount of attention that this blog devotes to “pet issues” in the Middle East. This is a complicated issue that requires a certain amount of detachment to debate in a rational manner.

Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer debates that are grounded in facts from which I can learn further about the issue at hand. I don’t think any of us do ourselves any favor when we hurl the word “anti-semitic” around at others (including fellow bloggers) without even bothering to define the word. It’s like branding people as “fascist” or “communist” around without bothering to define those terms.

I think you and others like the boycotters are being played

“useful idiots”

When a post contains a statementt like that, it condemns the following discussion to consist of attacks and counterattacks. This kind of over-the-top approach makes the job of those trying to support Israel much, much harder.
By demanding unquestioned allegiance and a correct (by your lights) view in every case, you push a lot of people into the other camp. Hurling insults left and right just pushes them further.
Israel has a serious image problem these days. There are complaints (seldom justified) that Israel’s concerns dominate US politics. You just gave those critics fresh ammunition, by demonstrating how intolerant and fanatical Israel’s supporters can be.

If you’re serious about supporting Israel, stop with the insults and tirades and examine the situation with a more open mind. The first rule of a boxer is to understand his opponent’s mind. It would help a lot if Palistinians were understood in a more sophisticated manner than just lableing them all ‘terrorists’ It might even lead to more sophisticated and more effective ways of dealing with them.

PS Unfortunately, I suspect that this situaion has been allowed to fester for too long, and the chances for resolution diminish with every day. This thread gives little in the way of hope .

Palestinian’s are Semites….you are using a term that doesn’t have any place in this discussion, or are ignorant to history/culture of that region.

“A modern version of “blame the Jew!” ”

Don’t consider any other circumstances that Israel (a country, not a religion) may have brought about by their own actions just keep to the script.

The old deflection tactic of saying everything is anti-semitism doesn’t play anymore Michael, Israel is a country and they are responsable for their own actions, nor do any countries/groups have to do business with them or be labeled anti-semitic for not doing so. Thats akin to blackmail by accusation that AIPAC and the Jewish Defense League has used for half a century, it’s over and seems many are tired and are calling the bluff on the blackmail.

jweidner Says:

While this is obviously an extraordinarily sensitive topic, and I have no wish to throw bombs into the middle of the discussion in any way, I do have to wonder a few things.

…

Bravo and well said jweidner.

… where is the line drawn between freedom-fighter and terrorist?

Until the fighting’s over there’s NO DIFFERENCE between freedom-fighters and terrorists except perspective. Then the losers are called “terrorists” and winners are called “freedom-fighters”… Now isn’t that easy?

For what it’s worth… The first freedom-fighter movie I ever saw was Walt Disney’s “The Sons of Liberty” but in Great Britain they thought it was about terrorists.

…Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), a member of the Democratic Leadership Team, has said that “a lot of those organizations, Amnesty International in particular, have always had bias against Israel.”

In reality, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and similar groups with a universal human rights agenda, rather than demonstrating any bias against Israel or any other state, have been quite rigorous in their uniform standards of reporting human rights abuses. Not only has Amnesty International been outspoken against human rights abuses by Middle Eastern governments opposed by the United States and Israel–such as Syria and Iran–but Amnesty also correctly concluded that Hezbollah, in the fighting last summer, had also “committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes.” HRW demonstrated how “the scale of Hizbullah’s rocket attacks on towns and villages in northern Israel, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used, together with statements by Hizbullah’s leader, showed that Hizbullah carried out direct attacks on civilians as well as indiscriminate attacks and attacks on the civilian population as reprisal.”

And I’m not saying dump a lot of money on them like we did in South Vietnam. That really did nothing for the economy and was only an illusion of economic stability and prosperity. Something like the Marshall Plan is needed to invigorate the Palestinian economy in such a way that it will be able to eventually be weaned from being propped up by outside financial sources.

And what would that require? It would require a true Israeli invasion to gain complete and utter control of the territories so that a Marshall like plan could be implemented. Is this something you’d really support? Somehow I think not.

That HRW article is nice and all, but that’s Lebanon, not the occupied territories. Even so, did Hezbollah let HRW roam freely to examine all the evidence? Of course not. Was amnesty international there to witness that no civilians were around when the Katushyas were fired? Of course not. Was Israel criticized when it attacked those rockets and civilians casualties occured? Of course they were.

Chris, I’ve read the Amnesty and HRW reports, but I have serious problems with their analysis for two major reasons. First, I don’t think either NGO has a good record of being consistent in the standards that they use. They tend to hold Israel accountable for actions that they don’t even comment about from Hezbollah or Hamas. Second, in order to be practical, standards for human rights obligations cannot impose a de facto suicide pact on one side. I don’t think the criticisms they level against Israel take note of Israel’s situation. They seem to condemn ALL POSSIBLE routes of stopping the rain of missiles. I just don’t think that kind of analysis should be taken seriously. No state can ever be expected to just sit there and do nothing while missiles rain down on their civilians.

Well then it would be productive for the Israeli government to find a way to turn the Palestinian people against the militants. This I think can only be done economically. If actions are taken to improve the economy and the standard of living for the Palestinian people, then gradually they will turn away from the extremists.
And I’m not saying dump a lot of money on them like we did in South Vietnam. That really did nothing for the economy and was only an illusion of economic stability and prosperity. Something like the Marshall Plan is needed to invigorate the Palestinian economy in such a way that it will be able to eventually be weaned from being propped up by outside financial sources.