The news media commonly conflate Palestinian attacks and Israeli responses into a so-called "cycle of violence". Nevertheless, differences between the two sides are difficult to ignore.
Take, for example, their responses to the scourge of AIDS.
Palestinians, upon learning of this fatal disease, saw it as an opportunity to make new, more lethal suicide bomb vests tainted with AIDS-infected blood.
Israelis, as Israel National News reports, are busy curing it:
HIV/AIDS Treatment BreakthroughKnowing the pure altruism with which Israeli doctors treat Palestinians -- even those wounded while attacking Israelis -- it is entirely likely that Palestinians will someday benefit from this Israeli breakthrough.
18:08 Jan 23, '05
While AIDS treatments using the conventional cocktail of medications can kill the virus, the affected immune system continues to kill healthy cells. Therefore, researchers from the Hadassah University Medical Center and the Weizmann Institute of Science decided to focus on developing a vaccine that would arrest this auto-immune destructive process. What they came up with significantly strengthens the body's immune system against the effects of HIV infection...
"Our aim was not to prevent infection by the virus but to strengthen the immune system and use our vaccination treatment as a complement to the antiviral medication," said Dr. Rivka Abulafia-Lapid. "Since the auto-immune process continues even after elimination of the virus, the vaccine that we have developed is directed to stop this destructive process. In other words, our vaccine complements the cocktail of medications, to stop the body from continuing to destroy itself."
To cast Israelis and Palestinians as morally equivalent is to be willfully blind.
9 comments:
Lets never forget who was dancing in the streets celebrating the Sept 11th attacks. That was the day when i came off the fence and became a proud supporter of Israel. Lets not kid ourselves if the Israelies woke up tomarrow and decided to drive the Palestinians into the Med there would be nothing the Palestinians could do about it. But because Israel is civilized nation this hasnt happen. Do you think the Palestinians would show such restraint if the balance of power was reversed.
Regards
gbfan001
Posted by gbfan001
I cam here just by chance, but by reading what you have posted just shows me why both sides are fighting. Neither side can surpass to see that their is no such thing as you or me. I hope one day when all is lost; we all will see how foolish we were. I pray that this day will come, but soon so we will not be at a lost.
Posted by thedude
thedude,
I wrote, "To cast Israelis and Palestinians as morally equivalent is to be willfully blind."
You prove my point perfectly.
If you can look at Israelis who are trying to save the lives of Paelstinians, while the Palis are trying their damndest to kill them, and come up with a nonsensical, ungrammatical, delusional statement like "Neither side can surpass to see that their is no such thing as you or me," then you are clearly determined to observe nothing about, and learn nothing from, the world around you.
Your naive "let's all be friends" sentiment only works if both sides are determined to act in good faith. Otherwise, one side just ends up being taken advantage of by the other, as the Israelis are by the Palestinians, who have no one to blame but themselves for their misery.
Posted by GaijinBiker
It is clear that someone trying to cure aids is serving mankind's best interest's. Someone foolishly trying to devise an aids bomb ludacris as it sounds, is just plain not using rational thinking. But you are not comparing apples to apples here. The proper example is hardline don't give an inch settlers who will not compromise even at the request of Israeli leaders who are seeking to create a new peace and the foolish Palestinians that insist on continuing futile violent attacks.
My respect is clearly to those who seek real solutions, like the fine Jewish doctors. Real solutions for peace, not small minded, reactionary chest beating,"of "we are more moral" Perhaps if the Palestinians had used non-violent protest, they would have a moral leg to stand on. Perhaps if Israeli hardliners hadn't refused to returned annexed lands under force of arms, the Israelis could claim the right to say we are just. Each side has not done these things, each side has blood on their hands.
Your small minded refusal to be objective is a clear example of the kind of thinking that may condemn any peace process to failure. Is this a non-sensical statement too? Let me state it clearly, your reasoning reeks of a underlying hate, and intolerance. Hate perhaps earned fairly at witnessing continued violence. But it renders your judgement mute. You cynically, maybe rightly predicted just because the Palestinians say cease fire it doesn't mean it will happen. Well someday it will, peace will find it's way against the odds of people like you. Peace will break out, and you will remain a cynic. Small minded to the last.
One other thing. I read today that in Russia there has been put in effect a ban on Jewish organizations. Perhaps this ugly anti-semitism, gives insight into why Israeli hardliners are so hardline. Rightly so, they will not allow themselves to be destoyed by forces irrationally opposed to the survival of Israel. Ironically perhaps, their stiff necked behavior inflames the hate from all sides, and causes further damage to Israel then it prevents? Maybe this is what some refer to as the cycle of violence.
Solutions are needed, indictments of who's more moral serve no purpose, but to deny a better future.
Posted by fasteddie
(1) Coming onto someone's blog and calling them "small-minded" is not exactly a sterling display of tolerance on your part.
(2) The word you are looking for is "moot", not "mute".
(3) You are close to a flash of insight when you suggest that my "hatred" might just be "fairly earned". Keep going in that direction.
(4) There is no such thing as a "cycle of violence". If Palestinians disarmed tomorrow, there would be peace. If Israel disarmed tomorrow, it would be wiped out. Declaring both sides to be morally equal rewards Palestinian aggression and punishes Israel for its restraint.
(5) Judgments of "who's more moral" don't "deny a better future." Palestinian suicide bombings, embrace of death and hatred, and refusal to accept coexistence with Israel deny a better future.
(6) The most desirable solution to a problem is not always possible.
Posted by GaijinBiker
1.I am not tolerant of political beliefs that encourage unending war. What ever angle it comes from. I call them as I see them and your opinion of yourself can't change how the world views you. You suggest we all narrow ourselves to your way of thinking so we can understand you? People don't work that way.
2.I know exactly what word and the meaning I implied. Moot is: hypothetical case argued in law, this isn't hypothetical, it's real examples you use to make your points. Points I find lacking. Your judgement is muted by your blind tribalism.
3.We must overcome our hatred to act justly. I have no belief in hatred as being anything more then a crippling emotion. Hatred is a symtom of a sickness needing a cure. How's that for idealistic? Let me break my arm patting my back.
4.Interesting point, but you totally discount any vengence factor in amyone who's lost loved ones from either side? And you are mistaken to think I've ever thought both sides are morally equal. What I've said is there are bad apples on both side. I believe, and this is in know way bowing to you, I've believed for years Israel is right to defend themselves. What I've found wanting is the ability to compromise for, and move constructively to a peace. The Palestinian terrorist may have a legitimate grievance, but it is discredited in my eyes by their insistance on violence.
5.This is a foolish statement and the root of your problem. Declaring us moral, them violent animals excuses any true initiative to help "those animals" rise above the state they are in. (Tribalism, why don't you read a little Reinhold Niebuhr on that subject.) This is your co-existance, Israeli bulldozers destroying Palestinian homes?
6."The most desirable solution to a problem is not always possible." This is too true, and the kind of excuse I can imagine the U.S. politician, a Jew I believe who with held the information of the atrocities being commited in Germany from Roosevelt before the war. (I'm sorry I forget this ugly man's name, I read about this in a book by Alan Dershowitz) The U.S. being isolationist at the time refused to grant visas to Jews trying to flee Europe. I'm sure you know the history better then I.
Posted by fasteddie
Whoever called for unending war? I want a war that ends with our side victorious.
Ironically, the Israeli reluctance to use devastating force, due to their ethical concerns, is actually dragging out the conflict and putting more people on both sides at risk.
It's like if you're sick and don't get a real cure, you will just keep getting worse and worse, whereas if you undergo a radical treatment (like surgery, chemotherapy, etc.), you may suffer in the short term, but will at least have a chance of living a longer, healthier life when it's over.
I guess we're going to have to disagree about "bad apples on both sides" being responsible for the conflict. I think Palestinian society is fundamentally flawed on many levels, and has raised a generation of children brainwashed in the ideology of jihad and martydom from birth. Combined with the lack of any leadership capable of actually controlling the various factions within it, these flaws prevent Palestinians from negotiating a true peace with Israel. Simply pointing out the atrocities your enemy commits is not the same thing as demonizing him. (If the bomb vest fits, wear it.)
Using bulldozers to knock down empty houses to deter suicide bombers is a humane response on the part of Israel. If Israel wanted, it could just go ahead and kill Palesitinians in the thousands. And if the military strengths of the two sides were reversed, that is precisely what the Palestinians would have done a long, long time ago.
If you overcome your hatred and the other guy doesn't, you are going to get killed.
And sorry, you are entirely incorrect about "moot", which in this context means, "of no practical importance; irrelevant." See definition adj. 2(b) at http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=moot.
"Mute" means "silent, unspoken, expressed without speech." http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=muteMy "small-minded hate" would render my judgment irrelevant (moot), not silent (mute). I can shout it in as loud a voice as I please.
Your last example about Roosevelt and entry visas is irrelevant. Refusing to implement a simple solution is not the same thing as having no good options for achieving a desirable outcome.
Posted by GaijinBiker
I appreciate the thought that goes into your replies, I just got up, and can't think straight,(if indeed I ever can, *smile*) I will have to reread your reply later. I need to read more on the history of the State of Israel, I've admited since I'm not a Jew, my knowledge wouldn't be the same as your knowledge of this.
As far as "mute" I doggedly stick by my use of it. If someone is prejudiced, I think they "mute" the voice of reason with in their head. My definition of "moot" is from a internet dictionary.
Despite our disagreement, and my lack of insight into the probelm, I still feel you are railing at something, and that I have always stated my hope for peace there. It seems there is a gleaming of light now. But I've only seen your comments on how evil terrorists are, I agree with you on this point. Yet I don't feel every Palestinian is a terrorist. But see they and people like you are locked into a mind set.
I'd like to hear you expound on what you think of the chances of peace, or insights into why it won't work, and what you propose more clearly.
Posted by fasteddie
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