The whole article should be recomended reading for anyone who wishes to comment on the Israeli/Palestinian consflict, IMHO.
As Avnery points out, understanding has nothing to do with justifying, but it is far easier for any of us in the western world to intuitively understand the position of the Israelis, who live in a modern democracy, than to understand the position of those who live under the thumb of a foreign, hostile military.
Oh God, here we go again.
May I elucidate on the process?
Step 1) A poster links of reprints a biased or gut-reaction-emotional news item, hoping to convince the woprld that the people on that side of the line are evil and those on this side are mere innocent victims.
Step 2) The “other side’s” defenders come round and decry how brutal, inhumane, and downright disgusting the first side and all her supporters are.
Step 3) A few people tentatively mention that neither side is all that good,orat least that they are both moainly terrified citizenry.
Step 4) It devolves into a shouting match.
FYI, I tend to support the Israelis on most such mater, sthough I disagree with the settlements. I am perturbd by the Palestinian’s continued descent into random violence, and, in fact, consider MODERN ISRAEL to hold the moral high ground, in that there are simply too many people who have grown up in the nation to end it, and who bear no blame for anything that has happened to the Palestinians.
But YMMV. I on’t want to talk about it anymore. No here, anyway.
Moderator’s Note: Drudgery With Intent, you included over half of the article in your quotations, and relatively little in the way of an original post by yourself. As far as copyright and fair use goes, that was excessive, and I’ve edited out most of the quoted material from your post–other posters can follow your link.
More along the lines of advice: As far as a constructive debate goes, I think it would be better to include more of your own viewpoint, and less of someone else’s article with an “I agree” tacked on the end.
1)Why the fuck you edit my post, MEB?
2)‘I’m not getting into it’, then why’d bother to post?
3)I think understanding what actually happens to people is important, whether they are ones you like or not, and considering western media overplays one side of the story, the other side needs airing.
We constantly see, and are horrified and disgusted (or should be, anyway) by images of the aftermath of violence perpetrated against ordinary civilians in Israel, yet we get only a tiny slice of the violence perpetrated against Palestinians.
I do not want to diminish the suffering of Israelis, but there is a lot more than just that going on.
OK, retract 1) above, it has been answered. Thanks. (I think fair use covers what I posted, but I am not the authority, so…)
You might also want to calm down a bit, DWI. “Why the fuck you edit my post” is rarely calculated to win the hearts and minds of Moderators, especially outside of the Pit, even if you haven’t yet seen the follow-up post.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled debate.
I’m zen, man.
Profanity is an accepted response to censorship where I come from.
Nobody here is interested in debating what Uri Avnery thinks. We’re only interested in debating what you think. All you did in your OP was copy and paste Avnery’s article with a “me, too” tacked on the end. That’s not a debate-starter–it’s a drive-by posting.
So, what do you think?
And, upon Preview:
Dude, you might wanna lurk a little bit more before you start accusing the SDMB mods of [air quotes] “censorship”.
Short version–it’s their message board, they make the rules, if you don’t like them, then you can go somewhere else, and your First Amendment rights do not guarantee you the right to have absolutely everything you post here left alone.
The “fair use” thing is generally taken to mean a few paragraphs, not over half the article.
DWI, posting long excerpts of copyrighted material is against board rules. Your charge of censorship does not hold water, given that the rules are clearly stated and that the Moderators left the link to the article so that anyone can read it who chooses to.
OK, with that out of the way, I don’t see where the debate is in your OP. Why not post what you think the appropriate solution to the conflict to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is, and we’ll debate that?
Yeah whatever Duck. I’m soooo glad you are able to speak for everybody here. You don’t care what Avnery has to say, you mean. Sad, really. It’s really quite central to what going on in the region.
Anyway,
How can the rage Avnery speaks of be dealt with? How can it be lessened? How can it be gotten rid of for good?
I don’t have the answers. I was hoping someone else might. But I guess no one cares. Maybe I should have known better than to ask this on an American board, huh? More bombs - you’re usual response- doesn’t seem to be working.
smiling bandit: Well, put. It is awfully repeititive isn’t it? You’ve encapsulated my own opinions on the matter ( in all respects ) pretty well.
Except I sometimes still can’t help myself from chiming in. Some kind of sickness, no doubt.
Time, patience, negotiations, compromise.
Never happen. Hatred is part of the human condition and the situation there is a nightmare of Catch-22’s.
But lessened it can be.
I’ll presume you emitted that last remark only because you are still smarting over the reaction your OP has received. Because, it’s not really an especially, you know, meaningful response.
Concerning the supposed point for debate, smiling bandit said it all. If you do a search in this forum, you’ll find that this specific issue has been debated hundreds of times, and often in a similar manner: one poster or another launching a thread with some inflammatory link to a pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian screed, then saying “See what depths the combatants will sink to?” So, it’s not that no one cares, it’s just that you haven’t really brought anything new to the table.
BTW, if you happen for some reason to think that this forum is made up of pro-Israeli zealots, search under the user name december and read the responses to his threads on this issue.
Since you’re new, drudgery, I’ll say a few words.
I fail to see why you’re so impressed with Avnery’s piece. I, for one, did not think Palestinian gunmen were gunning down Israelis because they hated Mondays. He could just as easily have written a piece on how young Israelis feel the urge to humiliate, oppress and kill Palestinians because their blood boils at the thought of atrocities like Kibbutz Metzer.
I don’t know either. I know something of murderous rage – I’ve seriousily thought about killing two people in past years – but I was able to contain it and tell myself in one case that the bastard was not worth rotting in jail. One man can tell himself not to descend into primeval hatred, but I don’t know if a people can do that.
You’re being insulting for no good reason. Many Americans care, but we don’t have easy answers for a complex problem that, to some degree, we inherited. Since the state of Israel has nuclear weapons, we can push it only so far. Furthermore, there are several domestic reasons why this country is reluctant to apply the screws to Israel and to support the Palestinians.
Ooh its been debated a hundred times on this board. So has god. No one bitches like this when a new god thread starts.
Pro Israeli zealotry? Where did I mention that?
Anyway, I’m not that new, been lurking around for a while. But I’m not coming back no more. Fuck you all.
Promise?
BTW-The SDMB is owned by an American company. But it is not an American board. The Millions do their Teeming in Canada, England, Ireland, Russia, the moderator Coldfire is from somewhere in Bjork/Viking land(Finnland?Norway?Iceland? I can never remember), Australia, New Zealand and plenty of other countries.
Jomo is dismayed at the recent influx of folks I would like to agree with in principle, but who behave like jerks. It makes the opinions I hold look bad. My parents raised me to be a polite, civilized liberal. If you don’t like that, then you can just go and f…
er, that is, Feel free to disagree. 
If I had to guess why people do not like to debate this issue, it would be the fact that the ever growing list of atrocities each side is responsible for makes it morally problematic to support either one.
Can someone tell me exactly why citizens of Israel are always considered to be innocent bystanders in attacks when their very support for their own military and government makes them quite implicit in its actions? Did they really think electing a man who should be considered a war criminal would make things better for them? How are “wars of liberation” supposed to be fought anyway? That both sides are effectively endorsing genocide as a solution makes me wish that one of those nukes Israel is so proud of would accidently go off and end the damn thing once and for all.
Of course you realize that that’s the exact excuse Bin Laden used as justification for killing 3,000 American civilians?
By your logic, ever citizen of every Democrocracy engaged in conflict is a legitimate target. And the twisted outcome of that kind of thinking is that citizens of dictatorships should enjoy protections that citizens of Democracies should not have.
Is that what you’re saying?
Unfortunate but true. I wanted an answer, not unpleasant implications of my question.