Terry's Peeps wrote:
Boilermaker Rick wrote:
Caller Bob wrote:
I mean, I still hate Joe Orr. But he is spot on here. Spot on.
Yeah. It seems like any attempt to explain why Israel has to consider different things that your average board member is met with some pretty harsh criticism.
Arabs bad, Jews good?
I mean we joke around with that but it really seems as if that is the attitude of MANY here. Israel's misdeeds are explained away because of history or fake news. They bear no responsibility for anything.
If that's how it is, then there is no real conversation to be had.
You can certainly take quotes out of context to draw that conclusion. Leaving JORR out of it, you did that with CH and his question about "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" and you did it to me because I dared say that there can be a justifiable reason to shoot an unarmed protester. You've been one of the most extreme voices on here in this thread and JBills followed you like a sheep into the same thing.
I think there are two lines of thinking here.
Israel should be judged exactly the same as any other country.
Israel is dealing with a situation unlike virtually any other country in history in that EVERY neighbor actively has attempted to destroy them and thought they had no right to exist. In fact, some people on this very board still question the legitimacy of how they were created and only give the most basic of acknowledgements that they shouldn't be destroyed now. Now, things have slightly improved on that as Israel and a few close nations have worked together to at least be neutral if not somewhat allies. However, it is still completely understandable that Israel would be much more cautious about protesters marching on their land that everyone acknowledges should be theirs with a public plan by a terrorist organization that actively and openly seeks their destruction. Is that giving Israel a pass on what was likely an overreaction? Probably. There certainly would have been more non-lethal things to do than having snipers shooting at the legs of the marching protesters. Is that enough for me to turn on Israel? It is not. I have very little sympathy for those who proudly and actively seek the destruction of Israel. That doesn't mean I think all Arabs are bad or that all Jews are good. That means that I am choosing the Jews in Israel over the Arabs that are seeking to destroy Israel and I have no problem with that even if it gets people like you and FF to mock me by saying things like "TEHY FEARED FOR THEIR LIFE!".
So, you seemingly fall into the first line of thinking where you immediately hear about conflicts like this and immediately blame whoever lost less people. I look at it with the grander scale of what the end goal is of those on each side of the conflict.
To put it another way, if Hamas came out tomorrow, even with their past, and said "We think Israel has a right to exist and would like to work on a peaceful resolution for the good of the Palestinian people who deserve their own state" then I'm almost certainly going to be with the Palestinian people. As long as they seek the destruction of Israel I'm going to be much more forgiving to Israel for doing things that other countries would be completely in the wrong for doing.