<< I wonder what Israelies expected during all these years of conflict. Maybe they naively expected Palestinians to simply roll over and die? I guess that it didn't work out that way.
The whole conflict actually reminds me of this metaphor: If you drive a wild cat into a corner, in order to escape and regain it's freedom it'll bite and scratch you any way it can. And call me 'apologist for the Palestinians' or not. I can actually sympathise with that point of view. >> Except, for most of these years, the Arab states have actually treated them worse, much worse. And when they tried to do anything about it, the Arab states responded worse, much worse. And nobody ever said a word about it. Nobody has criticized Lebanon, for example, for keeping the refugees in camps for 50 years and not letting them become citizens. Nobody criticized Jordan for stomping down the Palestinian rebellion in, I think, 1970. Nobody criticized Kuwait for expelling 300,000 Palestinians in 1991. I understand that Israel deserves being held to a higher standard. But nobody ever even asks the Arab states to be held to any kind of standard at all. If people would at least recognize the hypocrisy here, the Israelis might not feel they were always being ganged up on. I have sympathy for the Palestinian people. They are led by abominable criminals, and betrayed by the Arab states. The Israeli occupation is very tough on them. But they could have had a state in 1948 and refused. Israel takes Jews in from anywhere in the world (including hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab states). The Arab countries steadfastly refuse to assimilate the Palestinians in their countries. The Arab countries have refused to turn the refugee camps into decent towns, preferring to keep the Palestinians in them miserable, the better to use them against Israel and to deflect their own citizens' anger outward. Who's treating whom badly here? But yes, Israel has to be held to a higher standard. I agree. But that does NOT excuse intentional targeting of civilians such as the Passover murders. Excusing THAT is holding the Palestinians to no kind of standard at all. 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
