I don't know what to do anymore. It breaks my heart to keep reading this stuff, but I can't seem to stop either. Like serving in my country’s military reserve even though I know it’s not perfect.
I’ve been reading some w/us and decided to look up some “facts” for myself and writing them up here, but I need to do more. I sleep fine at night because I understand that the media is never objective and always serves a purpose, for each “fact” published there is an equal and opposite “fact” somewhere else. I know my parents laid awake until they heard my voice on the phone the other week when there was Yet another terrorist bombing in Tel Aviv
Addicted to Everything2 this Spring on a day off I really got a clear idea of how propaganda can define the one sided opinions of people who don’t really know what is going on. I have been born to Israeli parents and lived in Israel for 15 years including 3 years military service and a month of reserves (Last year in the southern west bank during operation “Homat Magen”) Middle Eastern politics is a touchy subject which people who haven’t lived directly on either side, will never really understand.
It pains me to hear anybody using the expression, "The only good Arab is a dead Arab."
My personal position is that the problems of Israel with it’s neighbors are extremely complex and anyone who thinks that just shipping Palestinians to Jordan, or killing them or giving them land is enough… Is naïve. Needless to say there are a lot of fucking idiots in Israel who think otherwise.
Let me just say, as nobody yet has pointed out, that this article is definitely one-sided. I make no qualms about that. I think being a Palestinian sucks, they have hard lives, getting the raw end of the deal both being attacked by the Israeli government / army, being seriously fucked over by their own corrupt government and having fanatic run terror groups sometimes ruining it for everyone else.
Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Member of the Palestinian Authority-appointed "Fatwa Council" and former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza. On 13 October 2000 over an official Palestinian Authority television station broadcast said "Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them - and those who stand by them - they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine.
If you want to see what the Palestinian authority think about peace and terrorism in their own words I suggest you go here: http://www.iris.org.il/quotes.htm
This write-up is just another taste of what is going on in My Home these days. And with the appointment Of Abu Mazen As Palestinian Prime Minister, I hope things will get better… even if just a bit. We, as a people, need to stand up and say no! We won’t allow Arafat to sabotage yet another step towards peace. We won’t allow the Chairman and his cronies to kill those who are interested in having a real dialogue and progress towards peace! We won’t allow a people to be driven off the face of the Earth by likes of the Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad or other terrorist groups which the Palestinian government lead by the ex-terrorist Arafat funds, sanctions and fully supports
Never forget the words of Shiekh Hamed Bitawi, chairman of the Palestine Religious Scholars Association and head of the PA's Sharia Court of Appeals in Nablus, describing the “Palestinian options” by saying “Our choice is the military option. We must put an end to the despicable negotiations. The time has come for jihad and martyrdom”
More information then I could ever convey to you here is located on the website http://www.hasbara.org.il (And many others) I will not plead with anyone here to spend time anywhere on either side, because I don’t believe subjective websites and organizations serve any purpose in truly understanding the nature of the conflict here. I invite you all to Israel and Palestine to talk to real people on both sides, so see what Israelis think as well as Palestinians, it might surprise you. Statistics can show whatever you want them too, just pick the right statistic and time frame. You can prove practically anything. I hope I am opening some eyes to how one side's certain websites are.
I will not give a list of crime committed by the “children of Palestine”, since they happen daily. I have seen 12 year olds smuggle explosives, and 14 year olds throw Molotov cocktails. I know the rules of engagement and the mentality of most soldiers in the IDF who are virtually children themselves serving in their mandatory 3 year tour of duty who are more interested in getting home for the weekend and sleeping off the last 21 days of hellish work, maybe catching a movie or going to a pub before going back to base Sunday morning.
I will not give the dates where whole classes of Palestinian children were taken out of school to throw stones. As it is a thing of the norm in the occupied territories.
A rather interesting study of noncombatant casualties shows that most Palestinian deaths are teenaged boys and young men. Which would contradict the accusations that Israel targets women and children. According to the study “"There appears to be only one reasonable explanation for this pattern: that Palestinian men and boys engaged in behavior that brought them into conflict with Israeli armed forces."
Facts? Not always, we all believe what we want to. They all tell us what they want too… My personal experience in the occupied territories is almost nothing compared to soldiers who served or are now serving in full combat positions (As opposed to me, I was a “Jobnik”) But I have seen enough with my own eyes to understand that what you read and what is going on might as well be the stories of two different planets.
Martin Fletcher NBC's Tel Aviv bureau chief noted "The whole uprising was media-oriented, and, without a doubt, kept going because of the media," and in his own words said that the Palestinians manipulated the Western showing themselves as “David Vs. Goliath” Fletcher openly admitted accepting invitations from young Palestinians to film violent attacks against Jewish residents of the West Bank.
"It's really a matter of manipulation of the media. And the question is: How much do we play that game? We do it in the same way that we turn up at all those Bush or Reagan photo opportunities. We play along because we need the pictures."
I found these quotes on the website http://www.us-israel.org/
http://hasbara.org.il
and http://www.iris.org.il
All highly subjective websites, as http://www.electronicintifada.net is.
This has been an enwhysea from the "otherside" writeup