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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hal jordan who wrote (8223)	3/12/2004 8:16:57 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 20773

Try to keep your prejudices out of this thread. This is a forum for moderates. Obviously, suicide bomb attacks against civilains is not part of the Palestinian culture, nor is it part of the Arab culture. That is why it happens so rarely. If this tactic was popular, we wouldn't have any Israeli left. Arabs outnumber Israelis by a significant margin Tom

To: hal jordan who wrote (8223)	3/12/2004 8:19:37 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

A while back, I asked you a question about Israel's tactics. Here it is again: Do you think it was a good tactical move by Sharon and Barak to kill Palestinians and publicly humiliate them in September 2001, right in the middle of peace negotiations? That was how the bloodshed began. Has the Intifada been successful for Israel in your opinion? Message 19239578 Tom

To: hal jordan who wrote (8223)	3/15/2004 11:35:49 AM
From: zonder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

The point is that 18 years olds on one side risk their life for their country, however, that is 180 degrees from the philosophy of knowingly intending to kill themselves I am sorry but the difference is so small that it hardly merits discussion. The 18 year old enlisted in an army can very well be given an order by his superior officer where he has zero chance of return. Like the first line of soldiers coming out of the trenches, knowing that they will be gunned down but perhaps their friends in the second line will go further. Japanese kamikaze in WWII were no different than Palestinian suicide bombers in their zero life expectation beyond their mission. History of wars is full of stories where soldiers took orders to fight to the end protecting a bridge or something. THEY had no hope of survival either. These 18 year olds in the M.E. get indoctrinated early in life that it is a good thing to die Some maybe. Those few growing up in extremist environments, probably. But your generalization above is as wrong as most other generalizations (like "All Americans are ignorant and fat", for example). The sentence above only goes to show that indoctrinations are abundant in all parties. Consider the possibility that assuming all all young Palestinians throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers and all suicide bombers to be "indoctrinated". Would that point to a certain indoctrination on your part, whereby you have given a generalizing verdict on something you probably don't have a first hand account on? Could this prejudice keep you from seeing the truth behind why a lot of these young people are committing these attacks? I have an alternate theory. Let me try to explain it: My understanding is that quite a lot of the suicide bombers are blowing themselves up while killing Israelis, not because they are indoctrinated from childhood and raised as human ammunition, but because they have had a recent trauma (i.e. death of a loved one) make their already rather unbearable lives too painful to bear. And make them burn with a need for revenge. Examples: Iyad al-Masri - Committed suicide attack a week after his cousin and 14 year old brother were killed by Israeli military in Nablus. Henadi Jaradat - Female lawyer in Jenin. Blew herself up in a Haifa restaurant, killing 21 people, a couple of months after her brother was killed before her eyes. There are many more such examples. Even if you will believe that brainwashing is a factor contributing to what makes a suicide bomber, read a bit about these people and see that some if not most of the recent suicide bombers had no prior connection to terrorism, and became suicide bombers after a loved one has been killed. Personally, I find suicide bombings to be an unacceptable method of warfare because it targets civilians. I do, however, think that Israel's brutal occupation of Palestinian territories leads to more suicide bombings. Saying "Oh they are all indoctrinated, what can Israel do?" is a gross misrepresentation of the situation, and does not help one bit in better understanding and hopefully dismantling this vicious circle of violence between Palestinians and Israelis.