Yesterday, two Palestinians convicted of working with Israelis were killed when a Palestinian police officer threw two grenades into their prison cell. One more of the wounded was then personally shot at the hospital. No arrests, of course; just the thin fiction of civilization evaporating.
And this whole mess, I’d actually say, is not Israel’s fault. Not even for creating the conditions. Things were working reasonably well during the peace process — if you don’t mind the outright kleptocracy of Arafat and his cronies and their rather thuggish approach to maintaining their rule. Which the Palestinians apparently didn’t mind enough to get rid of him. Then they let themselves get led into war and violence, and everything descended into chaos as all the infrastructure and society that the Palestinians had built up over the previous decade got destroyed and consumed. This is an illustration of what happens when people decide “oh, this autocrat is okay, he’s on our side” — autocrats die, and they don’t leave behind an institutional mechanism of succession. Just barbarism.
(I’ll be back to offending the right soon too, don’t worry)
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 
The problem is that the debate has been framed in such a way that Left=Loves Palestinians and hates Israel and Right=Loves Israel and hates Palestinians.
Cold-blooded murder is cold-blooded murder is cold-blooded murder.
I’m with pope_guilty on this one.
I think it’s safe to say that atrocity is bad, on either side of a conflict, even if the other side is doing it too.
I gotta add my voice to this. I’ve never chosen a ‘side’ on the whole Palestine/Israel situation, because as soon as I do, they perform some act that I think is just barbaric.
(Plus, as I told someone else a few months ago – I’m all the way over here. It’s not that I don’t care about the suffering of people, it’s that it’s very easy for me to blindly choose which side is ‘right’ while sitting safely in my apartment, with no fear that someone of some suicide bomber striking at the local mall. And I’m happy for that. I don’t understand either side, and if I did all the research required, my point of view wouldn’t change. It couldn’t.)
I guess that’s my long way of saying I’m not offended. I completely understand that I have a position of ignorance on this, and while I wish it could change, it’s one of the few things where I know it wouldn’t.
On the other hand, that event described above is pretty horrific. That I can say with confidence.
Rich
Well, I won’t argue with anyone that it wasn’t horrific.
No, this is a conflict that’s made very few heros, and it’s proven deeply corrupting to both sides to be in it. Which is why so many people wanted peace.
No, this is a conflict that’s made very few heros, and it’s proven deeply corrupting to both sides to be in it. Which is why so many people wanted peace.
I think we can agree on that part completely.
The only question these days is how? And that’s somewhere where I admit I have no answers.
(Which is rare for me – I’m normally one to fling my opinions about.)
Rich