Opinions

For those who are interested, there are some very pithy comments following a post from below on "This is very sad". It is hard for me to understand how someone who I thought was removed from the actual fray (commenter 1) could harbor such stark feelings about a whole peoples (dubbed the palis for the Palestinians; reminiscent of the North Ireland conflict with its "prods" and "micks.")The fact that he has a son in the IDF, and that his veiws are certainly tempered by this relationship, is disconcerting.

Yes, I must seem shrill at times. And, yes, my sympathies are with the Palestinians because I see that their children are getting the s**t kicked out of them. It is much like Iraq in a way. Palestinians used to be, along with Iraq, one of the best educated Arab populace in the Mideast. Now there is an entire generation of children who have little or no education. But, in any coming world, unless you kill them all as commentator 1 (and others ) advocate, the best hope for peace would be a well educated population. You can't educate children in the wasteland that is Palestine and Iraq.

Furthermore, even if the Palesinians completely capitulated to the Israeli demands, what then? You also can't have a viable country (Israel) in the middle of a humanitarian wasteland that you have helped create. I wonder if commentator 1 would feel any guilt?

Commentator 2, Felix Grant, has an excellent post on this topic here. I mirror his comments in that, while I disagree with some of his points, I find that we still agree on the big ideas.