If you are an honest and fairminded person, you can not help but change your views after reading the facts.
I doubt it.
I have a great deal of trouble getting past these facts.
1. The Palestinian people and the PA generally agree with and suport Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. These are not a few out-in-left-field fanatics, but have mainstream support. They have no intention of stopping killing until all jews are gone from the Middle East. So far, nobody within the Arab world or the international community has shown either the desire or the ability to control them. Until that happens, the attempts to keep killing civilians will just continue.
2. Hamas, IJ, etc. are intentionally, deliberately, and quite systematically targeting not soldiers, not government officials, but ordinary citizens -- young people out in cafes and shopping centers, people on their way to religious services, women, students, infants. There is no way I am willing to forgive or overlook or excuse this. Yes, Israel is also killing civilians and children, which is terrible. But these deaths happen in the course of targeting terrorists, attacking mobs, and the like, or in what are at least arguably justifiable military actions. Israel does not intentionally target innocent civilians and children who are just others who have placed themselves outside of the rights of law. I know of no Israeli military actions that have just gone with the intent of killing as many innocent civilians as possible. Do you?
Until these two facts change, I doubt that any other facts will emerge that will make me believe that Israel should stop building its fence, or stop actively targeting those who are intentionally targeting its citizens.
If tens of millions of American Indians (proportionatly correct given the relative sizes of Israel and the US) were committed to exploding bombs in our shopping malls, airports, downtowns, churches, and the like, and killing thousands of Americans (also proprtionately correct) with the demand that we give back their land and all go back to where we came from, do you think we would be sitting back and saying "well, let's just talk peace with these folks and see whether we can give them their land back"? Nuts.
I do not expect Israel to do what I would not do. |
