<< Why do you support Israel? Their words speak of peace, but their actions
speak of continued agression. Given the enthusiasm with which Israel launches strike after strike, killing several Palestinians for every killed Israeli, they give the impression that the Israeli regime is intend on going on till there are no Palestinians left alive. >> With all due respect, and not intending to call anyone names, this is one of the most disgraceful and intellectually indefensible statements I've ever heard. The one thing Israelis want more than anything else is for the whole Palestinian problem to GO AWAY so they can live normal lives. Yes, there are some settlers who want to hold on to the West Bank more than they want peace. Yes, there are a few lunatic followers of the late Meyer Kahane who call Arabs animals and want to expel them from all of Israel. Yes, Ariel Sharon is a murderer who should be voted out of office. But to say that the Israelis are enthusiastic about killing Palestinians or that they want to continue doing so until all the Palestinians are dead is coming perilously close to the "blood libel" (which, by the way, various Muslim clerics still continue to spread to this very day) and shows a total ignorance of Judaism, which reveres life. The tragedy of Israel today is that Jews are being forced to be killers, which goes against every ingrained tradition of Judaism. Most Israelis want to be rid of any responsibility for the Palestinians; they just have no idea how to bring this about. Continuing terrorist attacks on civilians scare them out of their minds; the fact that groups like Hamas can get away with these attacks and that the Palestinian Authority either cannot or will not stop them does nothing to allay those fears. Nobody ever called for killing every Palestinian; within living memory, people actually tried to murder every single Jew on the planet. What the Sharon government is doing now is wrong; but that will change, and soon too, I hope. Why don't you tell Hamas to stop doing what it is doing, too? (I know why - because Hamas will not listen and there is nothing anyone can do to make them listen. Whereas Israel is amenable to various kinds of pressure.) Tom Beck "I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I didn't realize I'd also see the last." - Jerry Pournelle
