Can I spare several minutes of your time?

[bimmylee]

Squilliam said:

bimmylee said:

Hmm. First, I would strongly disagree that Israel is treating others similarly to the way they have been treated. It's not like they've ever initiated an anti-semitic Holocaust. There's no Israelis going on suicide-bombing missions into Palestine. (NOT to say, of course, that all Palestinians do that, because that would be a ridiculous generalization, but you get my point.)

Second, I would venture to say that the two are not mutually exclusive issues. The very fact that Israel exists IS the root of these conflicts. Israel is surrounded by nations whose governments routinely call for its complete and utter destruction (like Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Iran, to name a few). Is it any wonder, then, that bad things (such as suffering) occur in the area every day?

Israel is about as close to apartheid as you can get without going back 20 years into South Africa. Furthermore if both the Israeli government wasn't propped up like the South African government was at the time they could not afford the level of conflict within their state and therefore a peaceable solution would have been found more appealing as they would have been more willing to compromise. Suicide bombers exist because of the disproportionate difference in power and economic prosperity between the two peoples.

The governments of countries surrounding Israel have mostly accepted the existance of the state. They also have their own problems to deal with and they aren't spending their time plotting the downfall of Israel. Terrorism is another name for guerilla warfare and they only exist when they are given a cause to fight for. If there was no cause, these movements would not exist outside of a small fringe. You don't see terrorism much in Ireland now do you?

"A peaceable solution would have been found more appealing." To whom? Israel? Unlikely. "They would have been more willing to compromise." How so? And why should they? They've done nothing illegal. The UN is the one who assisted them in becoming a nation (again) in the first place. And your apartheid analogy is very flawed. The motivation and historical context is entirely different here.

Your comments have exposed how uneducated you are in terms of world news. Israel is currently in a formal state of war with at least two nations (Syria and Lebanon), if not more. Iran doesn't "accept the existence of the state." Jordan is working to restore ties with Hamas, the author of these quotes. If you really believe such a ridiculous thing, then your anti-Israel bias has been made clear here, and I don't intend to argue further.