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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (135633)	6/4/2004 4:34:19 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

You think it's terrible that they ever kill Palestinian innocents. I think it's terrible too, but not so terrible that they should make the other choice - leave the Hamas leaders alone with their foolproof shield of innocents, and let Israeli children die instead. Make no mistake, that is the choice they face. Nadine, two things. First I don't think the choice is to to choose to kill Hamas leaders along with innocents OR to let Israeli children die instead. The reason I say that is because after the Hamas leaders and others have been driven further underground, they'll still be killing Israeli children and the hatreds and revenge passions will still drive the Palestinians. Some might argue that if a nation acts in ways that are perceived as oppressive and heavy-handed the end result will inevitably be more violence, not less. Second, what I'd do is adopt rules of engagement that were indisputably fair. I'd enforce them and I'd keep the soul of Israel intact no matter what the enemy did. I'd understand that the "fire from the bunker" mentality of the holocost survivors that have driven Israeli policy for so long, while understandable, is ultimately doomed to failure. I'd stop worrying about the Arab mind "strong horse" and I'd acknowledge the merits of many Palestinian grievances. I'd stop allowing the religious radicals to set policy. I'd do all that if it weren't a democracy but no one put me in charge and the people are too angry now. As we've learned after 9/11, angry people do rash and counter productive things and then necessarily spend a lot of time suffering the consequences. All that might not help to diffuse the hatreds and let moderates come up for air and catch the ear of others. But the course of actions of both sides aren't helping either, and sometime, not now but sometime, that will happen.