Really now... this case isn't similar to serial killers at all. It's not like Palestinians are killing random folks because they had bad parenting... it's more like a person condemned for assaulting another person after that person kicked him out of his house, beats up him and his wife, and says "Hey man, let's work toward peace here. I'm willing to leave you alone as long as you stay on your half of the house."

I'm sad that you would say that you think it's nonsense to try to understand what drives someone to do something obscene... To take the obvious moral relativist argument and point out that what you consider to be obscene is simply your cultural upbringing while you engage in many acts that many other cultures would find obscene, I'm sure you would want the opportunity to make your case before you are summarily punished for what you believe to be just actions on your part. You can call them fucked up, but just as we can often see that past Western cultures have been pretty fucked up, despite being mainstream, perhaps in the future we will look upon today's Western culture as a moral crater.

More importantly though, such an understanding is required so we can move toward a peaceful resolution rather than the conflict to escalate and the moral standards of both sides to rapidly deteriorate.

No. Chris... it's more like this:

The man comes, beats up the wife and the kid and takes half the house.

Then... you who got pushed out has two generations of kids who live on the other half of the house. From time to time, one of the grandchildren punches the grandchildren of the other guy in the face, and when the other guy punches back, your grandchildren call the police and get upset when the don't do anything, saying "We've done nothing wrong look at our suffering how can you do this."

When... all the while, neither family has any other place to go besides the house...

Its like some white guy in America shooting random black guys because he got mugged by a black guy on the subway.

The innocents who die in attacks on buses or pizza places may have voted for the candidate more in favor of peace, they may be members of Peace Now, hell, occasionally even Arabs die as innocents on Israeli buses and pizza places.

Thuc - that was a good adjustment to the original analogy.

Chrisp - I said that while it can be interesting, it's not necessary to say that the act itself is obsene. I agree my cultural upbringing says it's wrong to deliberately kill children. And If mine are killed, my cultural upbringing also says it's wrong to demand the death of the CHILDREN of the one responsible.

That's the part that is obscene. Rape and Murder and Torture are also ok in some cultures, but do you sit there and think to yourself "I can't really condemn them for it, because it might be ok in their culture" ... Fuck that!! you CAN and SHOULD condemn them for it.

Now let me see if I can add to your analogy a little, trying real hard to be fair - because I don't think the Palestinians started off wrong in this whole dispute when it started in '47.

You and your family are renting a house (and have been for many many years) and your landlord comes to you one day and says "I'm sorry about this but this family has been through a lot - and they rented this place for a few months at some point in the past, so I feel obligated to let them stay here and put them on the lease."

Now you get pissed off at this and don't approve of the lines drawn so you just decide to punch the guy in the face and sit on his couch (cause it was yours just yesterday, after all) Well now you see that the guy has a knife, so instead of simply punching you back in the face he cuts you a little and says "Now your line just got moved back a little, I'm taking the kitchen!" So now for generations your kids are growing up and they're telling their kids that if they ever get the chance, they should kill the other kids, even if they have to die doing it.

ok, the ending was a little weak, but my point is, I understand the frustration and the anger, but the response is obscene, no matter what your cultural upbringing is.

Regarding the bombing of the UN School, NBC is reporting that "Two residents of the area who spoke by telephone to the Associated Press said they saw a handful of militants firing mortar shells from a street near the school."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28404637/

Thucydides, I agree with your correction. That's probably more accurate. The issue still remains that trying to shift blame on to the other person doesn't really lead to a peaceful co-existence...

philcore, I know what you're saying and I must admit that I hate moral relativistic arguments. I originally wrote my post to bring up the point but not use it in argument, but I ended up deciding to anyway. My real point was that if you can say that Israel's recent attacks are justified as retaliation then I would argue that Hamas' rocket attacks are equally justified. If you condemn Israel's attacks then you should also condemn Hamas' rocket attacks. I'm not saying you shouldn't condemn, I'm saying that both sides are guilty if one side is.

I don't believe your analogy works because the Palestinians weren't renting... they are their own landlords... Unless you mean to say that the Western nations are somehow the landlord and have the right to tell me that I have to move out to house this family...

Same situation, except this time I own the house. Instead of a landlord telling me what to do it's just a huge 6'7'' man who doesn't even live in my neighbourhood telling me that I should house this poor family because they've been through a lot.

Chrispminis, no, that is not right either. Taking your last paragraph, its a 5'4" man who didn't live in your neighborhood, but 6'7" guys in another neighborhood killed all of 5'4" family, then decided to relocate him to your neighborhood. OVER TIME, he grew to 6'7" also, but he started at 5'4".

I'm absolutely sure the IDF is NOT purposely targeting civilians... They might be relatively well trained but that is hardly a guarantee against collateral damage.

Hamas is simply targeting Israeli's, whether they be citizens or not. Obviously this is heinous and I condemn it, but they don't exactly have the capabilities to be able to be choosy about their targets... Israel can afford to be more discriminatory. In fact, it can't afford not to be discriminatory because it is far more likely to garner a terrible international reputation than it is to lose outright to Hamas.

The 6'7'' guy I'm referring to is the Western nations that facilitated the installation of a Zionist state, not the Zionists themselves.

Regarding the thought that our culture is elementally and categorically superior to Palestinian culture...
---
Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

John Yoo, Former, former Deputy Assistant the Attorney General (current Professor of Law at UC Berkeley): No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

Chrispminis,
Ah, ok, misread that. So you go about trying to kill the poor family because they are there. Its hardly surprising that the poor family does whatever it can to defend itself.

I have another child- metaphor that I want to use here.

We have a little kid, kindergardener. He's a geek, high sicks, suspenders, way-too-thick glasses, a Mr. Spock backpack- you get the idea.

So he's a student, but doesn't really fit in, is not really accepted.

And so a little Italian kid starts to insult him and call him names.

Our little kindergarden geek starts to cry.

First and second grade- along come a kid who's parents are both French, and a kid who's parents are both English. The three kids have the same interests- the nerdish kid is off watching Star Trek during lunch. So the three kids start to pick on the geek, but now, since there's three kids and not just the one, the name calling becomes pushing.

And our little geek, who's puny for his age but a nice little guy at heart, continues to cry.

Middle School- a kid who's parents just moved here from Spain comes along, and is VERY popular and pretty big for his age. The other three start hanging out with him (though they all have their own little disagreements.) But this new spanish kid HATES anyone who doesn't like watching his favorite show, a cheesy Saturday-morning action cartoon (pick whichever one you want.) In short the Spanish kid hates anyone who's different- and with a skinny frame, high socks, taped-together glasses, braces, and suspenders, that geek sticks out like a sore thumb. It doesn't help he watches old Star Trek re-runs while that Saturday morning cartoon is on. So the geek gets picked on by the four of them, only now, since it's four instead of three and the hormones are starting to kick in, the pushing becomes punching to the gut and stealing that Mr. Spock backpack and deflating the little geek's bike tires.

So our little geek keeps taking it because he can't fight back, and he continues to cry.

High School- a German and a Russian kid from another middle school join the gang, and the six kids really start to lay into the poor geek, and now he's going home with bruises and bloody noses.

And he's still crying.

Finally, sophmore year, the little geek makes a friend. And wouldn't you know it, this friend is a middle-American kid who's on the wrestling team.

At the same time, our little gang of many nationalities is breaking up and changing. The English kid, who's been a big, misunderstood fat kid this whole time, drops out and starts hanging out a bit more with the popular American kid. The Russian kid and German kid, who are the two biggest kids in the group and the leaders, have a fight and go their seperate ways, and the spanish kid loses interest and leaves the gang. The French kid, now, is getting some bad looks from the German and Italian kids- he leaves.

So, almost out of people to bully and a fraid of losing his power built onfear, the German kid goes for his favorite punching bag- our little geek. Only this time, be beats him up so badly that our geek gets a broken nose and cracked ribs and a black eye and has a concussion after a VERY bad blow to the head.

And our geek is so badly hurt and crying he is, as you might have guessed scarred in more places than just skin-deep.

Well, enough is enough at this school, as first the English kid and the American kid and then more kids stand up to the German kid until he backs down- and he gets suspended and apprehended by the sherrif.

The school year ends, and our geek thanks the American and English kid for their help, and says he wishes he was strong like them. Well, he's in luck- the American kid's an All-State wrestling champion now, popular and captain of the team at school (his only real competition is that Russian kid, but that's another story), and the English kid's on the team, too.

So that summer, the two train the geek, take him to the gym, to the school's wrestling practice area, train him in their garages, at home, and as the kid gets stronger, he also finally gets that growth spurt that all teenage boys have.

So, the next year, he goes to school with thin, cool-looking sunglasses instead of his old taped up inch thick bottle glasses, is in a t-shirt and jeans, and a black, grungy backpack (his cellphone still looks like the Star Trek Communicator, and he still flashes the Vulcan salute from time to time, but old habits die hard, and hey- he still lites Trek ;))

So now, with popular friends and a physique that's built so that he can finally defend himself, it would seem all is well with our not-quite-a-geek.

It's not.

All those years of being picked on and pushed and punched- this kid is now EXTREMELY paranoid and has a quick temper and an even quicker fist.

He can finally go back to the audio-visual room in peace at lunc to watch his Star Trek re-runs, but one problem:

A Middle Eastern kid is there: and HE likes to watch Doctor Who.

And our geek hates Doctor Who with a passion, and our Middle Eastern kid hates Star Trek just as much.

Our geek demands the TV that "was originally his and should be again," while the Middle Eastern kid claims that "he's been here for so long that this is his TV now."

Our geek states the TV is his rightfully and that the Middle Eastern kid "only has the TV because he [our geek] was forced out of the room." The Middle Eastern kid states "just because you used to have the TV doesn't mean you should have it now."

So both make a scene, some kids gather, and both state their case. The American kid backs his friend, the geek, and since our American kid is big, strong, and popular, and everyone sort of feels badly for mocking the poor geek the last twelve years, the geek gets the TV room back, and everyone hails it as it as fair, and that American kid is getting more and more opular by the minute (except with the Russian kid.)

So all's well, right?

No- now the Middle Eastern kid is in the same position the geeks been in for all these years, withc one difference:

HE has some powerful friends.

So a fistfight breaks out for the room between the geek and the ME kid and his handful of friends; it's about five-on-one, but our geek has had some good training from his American friend and has A LOT OF PENT UP RAGE AND AGRESSION
and so wins the fight.

THAT round.

Because now he has new enemies, our geek, that ME kid and his friends. Sad thing is, the two aren't all that different- nobody's really liked this Doctor Who-watching ME kid either, and he's been picked on, he just got through it better because he had a couple of good friends and was lucky a few times.

And Doctor Who and Star Trek are both Sci-Fi and have some similar themes and ideas- these two kids, under differend circumstances, could've been great buddies, maybe best friends.

But they met at the worst time, when the Middle Eastern kid was in a bad mood andin no mood to share and when the geek was eager for the chance to unleash some of that anger that had been pent up onto him; he's still a good kid, a nice little geek at heart, but because he's VERY paranoid now, when he saw he was outnumbered and one of those ME kid's friendds stepped towards him, he didn't wait to see if he could talk things out or call for help-

HE'D DONE THAT FOR YEARS.

And it had only every brought him pain, the only way this geek EVER got an end to his suffering was by hanging out with strong kids who were agressive (but could control themselves, mostly) and becomeing strong and agressive himself.

So on and off this battle rages for the TV every week or so- and the geek always wins because he's so well-trained and well-built now.

Unfortunately, since he's paranoid and theat ME kid is persistant, soon he's attacking sooner and sooner- now waiting for those ME kid's friends to show up for fear of a big fight and more injuries, he, the geek, just pushes the ME kid out and slams the door in his face.

So our once-loveable-yet-tragic geek is starting to become a misguided-paranoid-bully figure.

And here's the kicker.

That ME kid is getting desperate- he NEEDS his sanctuary back, just as much as our geek does- the ME kid just can't win it back.

By himself.

But now along comes this Gangster kid. He's known as one of the worst kids on campus, at times he seems almost as bad as that German kid who nearly bashed in our geek's brains. Still, he DOES usually get the job done, he's a pretty good fighter because he doesn't play by the rules.

Our ME kid falls in with this kid, the "wrong crowd," and his friends wait.

Our geek is walking along in the hallway on his way to Advanced Quantum Physics-

-and the Gangster punches him in the back of the head: clearly not a fair move.

But before our geek can lay into him, the Gangster runs away.

A few days later, same thing.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Our geek isn't stupid (he's in Advanced Physics!), he knows that the ME kid's "in with" this Gangster.

So he figures that the ME kid is partly responsible, and starts tripping him in hallways- not enough to hurt the ME kid, becasue or geek DOESN'T WANT TO BE a monster and bully, he knows what it's like to be hurt by one- he just wants to send the message "you and your 'new friend' better leave me alone- or else."

As gossipy as this school is, it's now a regular topic of conversation, our geek- is he still a nice guy, or a bully?

The American kid is his best friend, they're pretty close, so of course he sticks up for him in these chat sessions (though the American kid is thought to be a little full of himself and not as popular as he used to be.) The English kid's a little wishy-washy on the subject, the geeks still his friend and he still says he's ok, but a bit of a jerk too (and the English kid's feeling guilty right now, seeing as how HE brought the TV to school and "promised" both the geek and the ME kid they could use it at lunch.)

But others- they're not as kind when talking about our geek.

Finally, after a couple weeks of getting smacked in the head or getting a faceplant in the pavement every time going to class, our geek's had enough- and decides to finish this once and for all by going to the small area the ME ang Gangster kid hang out and our geek takes to pummeling both of them, non-stop. Doesn't wait for the ME kid to get off the ground, doesn't wait for the Gangster to get up and kick him in the back of the head again. This fight has laster all of lunch so far, and is getting pretty bloody and VERY bad.

A crowd's- gathered now. The American kid, the English kid, the German, French, Italian, Russian- they're all there, plus others, some rooting for the geek, some rooting for the Gangster and the ME kid, ALL wishing this would stop.

But where are the higher powers- the teachers?

Nowhere to be found............

So- that's the metaphor. A long one, but then again this is a long, complicated issue.

Why children? Because Israel IS a child a scarred, scared, paranoid child. Palestine's a depressed, beaten child. That Gangster who's not playing by the schoolyard rules of conduct- Hamas. And the other kids I think you can guess.


I've heard these reports the last few days. Up to 500 dead, mostly militants, but at least 100 civilians dead. Ground troops moving in, missiles going deeper into Israel, and threats that "Gaza will become an Israeli graveyard" and that "further and farther missle strikes are to come."

And STILL no help.

Why have so many civilians died? I'd split the blame 50-50: the IDF's been a bit over-agressive out of sheer frustration and rage, but that does not excuse it. But keep in mid too that the Hamas militants ARE LOCATED AND SEEK TO FIGHT in civilian areas.

I heard this on CNN a while or so ago, and I think it's the truest thing about Hamas that's been said recently: they WANT some Palestinian civilian deaths, because the more civilians that die, the stronger their cause- they BREED and live off of fear and anger towards Israel. More dead parents mean more confused and scarred kids becoming snipers and missle and bomb makers and walking bombs themselves.

Israel is that geek- it's been hit one too many times over too long, and has developed to the point where IT WON'T LET someone hit them- THEY'LL hit first if the get the chance. And I think that's understandable, if not entirely excuseable. All those centuries of persecution and these last fifty years of nearly constant war has led to a HUGE persecutution complex in the minds of Israelis- ask yourselves, if you were in their position, after hearing and knowing about millions upon millions of deaths over centuries at the hands of not just one country but many, and then after being shelled and having to shell back for fifty years, watching your friends go off to serve and hearing, or worse, actually SEEING some of those friends die, how would you react at the hint of another threat, more death?

"Ah, ok, misread that. So you go about trying to kill the poor family because they are there. Its hardly surprising that the poor family does whatever it can to defend itself."

Haha, I think you're making a serious error in the scale... It would probably start with the poor family becoming stronger... and insisting on occupying more and more rooms while I find myself unable to do much because he's got some pretty big supporters. I find the whole situation ridiculous because the poor family was wronged by the people in the 6'7'' guy's neighbourhood but they aren't offering to put up the wronged family. I could sympathize with his plight before and could even see helping them temporarily, but apparently that's not the deal that's been thrust upon me. I eventually crack and hit the guy because he's getting cocky and telling me I can't use my own washroom or fridge, both of which I need. He naturally hits me back and the fist fight continues. He's a better boxer than me so I resort to underhanded techniques such as kneeing him in the groin and fishhooking his mouth. While I may have once sympathized I now thoroughly hate this man and his family and the fact that they have taken over many parts of my house. The point is that none of us can hope to reach a resolution by punching each other a bunch.

obiwan, that's a fantastic story and if you wrote it as a short story you could probably get it published. It's not a bad metaphor and it's got potential as a stand alone story. I would just like to add that the geek's friends, while defending him from the German and helping him take back the AV room from the ME kid, also have their own TV's and their own favourite shows and aren't exactly offering to let the geek watch Star Trek on their TV's except perhaps every now and then as a token gesture...

"I eventually crack and hit the guy because he's getting cocky and telling me I can't use my own washroom or fridge, both of which I need."

I'll re-write that as "I eventually crack and hit the guy because I feel like he's getting cocky and telling me I can't use my own washroom or fridge, both of which we both need."

I didn't want to come off that hard on the Israeli family in my analogy.

Chrispminis,
"It would probably start with the poor family becoming stronger... and insisting on occupying more and more rooms while I find myself unable to do much because he's got some pretty big supporters."

I think you forget that in 1948, the poor guy accepted a proposal to accept half of the state of present-day Israel. You rejected it, and got your relatively strong friends of the region to come and try to kick the poor guy out. Miraculous the poor guy won and indeed when the fight was ended, the poor guy occupied more of the house.

In 67, your friends were getting ready to invade the house, so the poor guy pre-emptively...

Well, you get the drift. Just get the metaphor right.

Chrispminis:
"Hamas is simply targeting Israeli's, whether they be citizens or not. "

Agreed. Agreed as well that that is heinous... but then, as a culture, how can we be claiming that we, as a culture, are above such things when as recently as Vietnam we were doing "strategic bombing" of (North Vietnamese) cities... and certainly in WWII, strategic bombing, indiscriminate bombing of populations, was the accepted M.O. for all countries involved? I personally find such things to be heinous... but how can some claim that Western Culture doesn't do such things?

Well it happens that my neighbours agree with me that I shouldn't have to give up half my house to a family that was wronged by a completely different neighbourhood, despite that that neighbourhood is where the wronging took place. Clearly the family was thinking to stay despite that I expressed my displeasure with the arrangement. They started working out and getting boxing lessons from the big guys in the other neighbourhood and I and my neighbours decided that if they wouldn't leave peacefully then we would kick them out... You can't see why I (or you, in the same situation) wouldn't be happy with having a family forced into my home with such scant justification?

I'd love to get the metaphor right... but I think the fact that I'm using I is muddling up your perception of my position in this debate... I'm not justifying the actions of Hamas or denying that Israel has no justification for it's actions... I'm saying that people forget that this situation was forced upon Palestinians and that any other people in their situation would take similarly forceful tactics and that both sides are responsible for the continuing conflict. If one side's actions are justifiable then the other's are similarly justifiable. If they aren't... then the other's aren't either. I'm just saying that people are too concerned about where the blame lies... and I think they might be victim to a double standard.

I think my position is relatively objective... I have no personal stake in this issue. I'm a born and raised Canadian of Chinese descent... I personally condemn the violence on both sides not because I'm a pacifist but because I don't believe either side will get what they want through violence and I feel the lives are needlessly being lost.

"
Agreed. Agreed as well that that is heinous... but then, as a culture, how can we be claiming that we, as a culture, are above such things when as recently as Vietnam we were doing "strategic bombing" of (North Vietnamese) cities... and certainly in WWII, strategic bombing, indiscriminate bombing of populations, was the accepted M.O. for all countries involved? I personally find such things to be heinous... but how can some claim that Western Culture doesn't do such things?"

I think it's because we live and breathe in our Western culture. Most of what we see is relatively good and for the most part we treat people well and we're happy. When you think American culture, you don't think of their violent WWII policy of unconditional surrender... you think of Big Macs and automobiles or whatnot. Islamic culture also has a lot of good and there are just as many facets to it as there is to Western culture. The difference is we don't really hear about the fun parties they have or about their local child spelling prodigies... we hear about suicide bombings and religious fanatics and so when we think about Arabic culture those are the first things that come to mind. It's just a misunderstanding... and it's mutual. Middle Eastern peoples probably see American culture simply as bloated, hedonistic materialism and arrogant interventionism. The point is to stop the positive feedback loop from blowing the resentment out of proportion.

Chrispminis,
Yes, the Jews decided to stay even though you expressed your displeasure. The Jews finally were able to get a state, after 2000 years of being systematically slaughtered all over Europe. No, the Arabs, the Palestinians were not responsible for their slaughter, but the Jews finally had a home where they could actually put up a fight and defend themselves. You ask me if I can blame the Palestinians for how they feel? No, I couldn't (past tense) blame them for how they felt. Can you blame the new Israelis for finally wanting a home?

And 60 years have gone by. Millions of refugees have come to Israel penniless and been absorbed into the population. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians refugees have since become millions and millions and millions, because neighboring countries still convince them to cling to the ideal that some day they may be able to move back to Tel Aviv and Jaffa and Haifa and its never going to happen. So instead of moving on with their lives, they have raised entire generations in refugee camps. There have been refugees after every war, and they are resettled and absorbed. After this war, however, they are not. They are encouraged to remain poor hopeless waifs, and their children's children feel more anger than they ever did. If their parents would have been resettled by the UN or by the neighboring Arab countries, this would have been over long ago.

"obiwan, that's a fantastic story and if you wrote it as a short story you could probably get it published. It's not a bad metaphor and it's got potential as a stand alone story. I would just like to add that the geek's friends, while defending him from the German and helping him take back the AV room from the ME kid, also have their own TV's and their own favourite shows and aren't exactly offering to let the geek watch Star Trek on their TV's except perhaps every now and then as a token gesture..."

Good point, Chrispminis, it IS sort of "He deserves to be able to watch Star Trek on a TV in peace, but not OUR TV, we're really more into House MD and CSI, so let's give him the TV he wants, his old one- he gets to watch his show, we get to watch ours. What could POSSIIBLY be wrong with that?"

And that's really the point of that big logn story- neither the geek-Israeli or the Palestinian kid is to blame: they each did not only what they thought was right, but what they were ENCOURAGED to hold as right. True, both kids really wanted that TV and each had a claim, but were they REALLY that different- both were calm, geeky Sci-Fi fans with similar taste in shows, Star Trek and Doctor Who are similar: if they'd met a different way or had had different friends, they could've become best friends and maybe shared the TV peacefully, Star Trek one day, Doctor Who the next, and the Gangster would never have had the chance to corrupt the Palestinian kid, the geeky Israeli kid would never have gotten a bad reputatioh he really didn't deserve, and the English and American kids would never have created a friend and a situation they could not control or solve.

That's not to say that the kid shoud never have been "created,"; that geeky Israeli had every right to get muscular so he could defend himself, and has every right to exist and watch Captain Kirk in peace.

Alos, this poor geek got beaten up for all those years straight, at different schools and everything- where were the teachers, or, in the real world, where's the UN?

Wasn't it CREATED to PREVENT AND SOLVE these sorts of problems before they got out of hand?

Of course, the UN's part of the problem for mishandling the settlement of the land, giving Jews too much in some parts to have the plan work peacefully and not giving the Palestinians either equal land as compensation or working a way so that both Jews and Palestinians could've shared the land.

But this is playing the blame game- right now, the geek, the ME kid, and the Gangster are locked in a fight that no one's stopping, and it won't stop on it's own.

And right now NO ONE is enjoying the TV room's Star Trek or Doctor Who.

So- how would YOU solve this, the schoolyard fight? (Let's find an answer to the small-scale fight and then see if it's appliacable to the real-world war, because obviously detention's not a viable option here, and no one wants expulsion or worse......)

ChrisP - the landlord was necessary in the analogy, because somebody else who had the authority over the current residents other than the family moving in was necessary. I thought about the renting aspect of my story, but I stuck with it. You're 6'5" guy accomplishes the same point though.

And the indescriminate rockets out of anger ... maybe that's on the line - that's all they have to show their anger and frustration, but the suicide bombers who purposely target women and children are the ones that I was originally referring to that you don't need to know the cause of their anger to condemn it. I do see a difference between them and the people lobbing indescriminate morters and rockets though.

to the house analogy - it'd be like the original occupents telling their kids to throw bottles on the other side of the house every now and then. Most of the time, no one gets hurt, the point is to make a mess and if someone does get hurt, so be it. That's one thing. Breaking the glass on your side of the house in secret and then with your agreed upon passage to the front door, you hold it in your hand, then as you pass the 5 year old kid playing with legos you jam it in his face. That's quite another

obiwanobiwan - Great story but there is one hole in it that completely ruins and negates the entire analogy ...

"Advanced Quantum Physics" in High school???

Firs of all Physics in High school is pretty damn advanced, but as a physic major in college, I have to tell you that even the FIRST class in Quantum Mechanics - a senior-level class, is VERY advanced!

You wouldn't take anything considered "Advanced Quantum Physics" until you were a grad student at the very earliest.

ok, maybe it doesn't negate the entire analogy, I just had to get your attention ;-)

DJ, I've already said several times in this thread that I believe that Israel should remain in existence as a sovereign nation. I absolutely believe they have the right to make their own home. I just don't believe they have the right to kick others out to do so. The deed is done at this point and we have to make the best of the situation.

obiwan, I think we see eye to eye now. Obviously there are no easy solutions to the problem... but as I see it, the real problem is the fact that there is on-going violence. I just find it strange that either side might think it can solve violence with more violence... It would be fantastic if other more powerful countries got involved in breaking the fight up and helping them out with their peace talks but nobody is stepping up to the plate because it's not their game.

philcore, I think the house analogy might be getting out of hand. Especially in terms of scale... if a country is now a house and a person now represents it's population then I don't think it's fair for you to equate targeting a child on that scale with targeting a child on this scale... just as scales are reduced, it might look more like one person poking the other person's eye... It's an underhanded move but if I'm a lot worse at fighting I might resort to hitting you wherever I can get a shot in.

they could evacuate it and drop a nuke on it. then whoever wanted to live there could. ...

Michael93, that really doesn't get anyone anywhere, I don't think. ;)

And philcore: as much as I love Star Trek (and that's quite a lot, I'm a Trekker, looking foward big-time to Star trek XI) I am HORRIBLE with any math beyond the basics, and outside medical biology I'm TERRIBLE with science too, so yes- I wouldn't have known that (to be honest, I'm not even 100% sure what is LEARNED in Quantum Physics, though I think it has something to do with Star Trek, I've heard "quantum" on the five series plenty of times lol)

But I'm very good with history and I'm told I'm a rather excetional writer and speaker, so I'll take the good with the bad and the salutes with the slings. ;)

And since most of us seem to agree someone needs to step in, WHO specifically would you all have step in to solve this?

obiwanobiwan- what was that rant about before- i got bored after first paragraph.
Was there a point you could make by being sucinct?

it would stop the fighting cause no one would fight over dead land and it would probably cause every religious community in the world to declare war on the country that dropped such a bomb. :D

I just don't understand why the US supports genocide from the Israelis.

It's quite hypocritical of the Israelis to not let the world forget what happened NOT ONLY to them, but to MANY people, my family(French Catholic) included.
My Grand parents on both sides shot, and tortured, gas chambers BLAH BLAH...
And here the Israelis are bombing a UN school killing 30 civilians and NO Hamas...

And why the press blackout...
One must wonder, did we do the right thing by giving them a homeland so they can steal others'?