Max I really don't know whether to be disgusted or in awe of your ideological clarity and sense of purpose. I truthfully don't know which side I'm on. I read Dimi's article and I empathize with him, understand his point of view, and feel the need to cut him some slack. I also realize that to a large degree that's utter bullshit on my part and allows me to ignore the brutality that an entire forgotten and maligned population has suffered for decades. It's between these two extremes where I find myself confused.

I think Dimi and many other Israelis are struggling between their sense of multiple identities, (as a Jew, Israeli, Westerner, Colonizer) and the disgusting facts on the ground that occur just miles away from their homes. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I see your complete lack of empathy and understanding for this position. Whether this is attributed to your enlightenment and moral purpose on the issue or your single-minded callousness I honestly do not know.

Ultimately though, this navel-gazing doesn't do anyone any good. I just flipped through some pictures on activestills.com and I see the anger in the eyes of the dispossessed. How can anyone be surprised that there are those who wish to kill Israelis? We need to stop looking at this conflict in the convoluted paradigms of religion, colonization, "clash of civilizations", etc, and understand the very simple reality that when someone knocks down your home, kills your family, and interns your children, you're going to be angry. It's a wonder that you dont have seas of Palestinians committing heinous crimes. And for this I can find some perverse sense of hope - that for the most part humans are good, and they know that reciprocal violence does nothing but quench bloodthirst.

But when the Israelis punish an entire society year after year after year - how for the love of all that is good on god's green earth can they act surprised that some Palestinians will respond with violence and not with the almost super-human quality of non-violent resistance.

what drivel

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/thousands-in...

Why do you ignore this story: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/it-was-clear...

1: Israel commits an atrocity.

2: Dissidents condemn the atrocity.

3: The commentariats assails dissidents as anti-Semites.

4: Common folk get confused. Some of them, instead of realizing that the dissidents aren't anti-Semites since they aren't attacking Jews qua Jews, fall for the bait offered by the commentariat.

5: They believe that if attacking Israeli policy is anti-Semitic, that can only be because Jews as a holistic group are responsible for Israeli policy.

6: They become anti-Semites, because they've been instructed to believe that Jews are the ones responsible for Israeli policy.

I've got to say that was quite brilliant. As a Jew myself who has often times felt suspicious by the commentariat's dogmatic pro-zionism this makes perfect sense and rather than only being stupid, such tunnel-vision thinking is dangerous for Jews as a whole: It's basically like saying that if a Jew is not a zionist he does not represent the Jewish faith. New-New-Anti-Semitism.

is there really any use of trying to convince you otherwise. it's not like you'll look at any issue evenhandedly, so why even bother?

Congratulations, you've completely and totally missed the point of my post.

Oh how ridiculously mistaken you are.

Actually, no I was referring to you as viewing the world just as Hitler did, in black and white. In your twisted and confused absolutist way of looking at the world a religion of 1.2 billion must have war waged upon it because for god sakes we've got good ole J.C. on our side! If you ever met a Muslim-American I think you'd realize that they actually (if you can believe it!) don't have sex with their children and mutilate their wives! Naaah too much to ask... you gotta keep on reading misquoted "excerpts" from the Koran and gobbling up the ideological and dogmatic crap that gets spewed on the daily. Thats much easier. Silly me, why would you want to get out of your armchair and actually "meet" the enemy??

As for your phrase the 'final resolution', well, I think you're smart enough to figure the idiocy behind that one. If you need help with it though, I'm here all week, no worries.

On a more serious note, you're basically the poster-boy for the phase 'You fear what you don't understand but think you do understand. (I kinda amended it based on the circumstances hope you don't mind.)

Regards

do you understand how similar you sound to hitler? of course you dont, you're 'an angel of light'.