Proton Soup said:
awesome. then we are on different sides. if by some quirk of fate, israel suddenly finds itself on the losing side, i don't want to hear a peep from you. all you understand is power and aggression. we tried appeasement once in europe, and it was a tragic failure. I'm not falling for it again. and I'm not having sympathy for people that learned nothing from their own tragedies except how great it is to be the aggressor.
You're entitled to your view, and clear anger, but understand that I'm not moved. I really don't care if I'm a terrible person or not, I simply evaluate situations individually, not based on some dream. Your talk of appeasement and reference to WWII however, is unseemly. If you want to rant in response to my honest and personal appraisal, try those PM's you hate; it's far more appropriate for that. Here, you might want to stick to something less than a diatribe.
I believe that once you confine yourself to one side, you're doomed. You can support a side or outcome, but making it purely binary is to ignore complexity that is quite informative.
@FizixFreak: Israel is acting in a fairly monstrous fashion, and the Palestinians are doing the same. As you say, the people who have NO excuse are the Arab nations who make it almost impossible for a Palestinian to get so much as a work visa; to them this is just a distraction so they can steal more from their people. Why, if Israel were no longer an issue, people might notice their own dictators like Mubarak, Qaddafi, Assad... oh wait, they did!
I know you strongly disagree with my view Fizix, but I'm not going to lie to you or anyone else about it. I'm also not going to dress it up in a moral justification; I think you understand that the ME is not a gentle place at the level of governments (the people are great). You can't be soft in the ME and expect to survive, and with nations carved by the French, British, and sometimes the USA... well... it's amazing things have held this long.
I think that once this all settles down and the people have the governments they want (or something closer), Israel is going to actually be FORCED to change internal policy, or risk war. Yes, it's a war they'd probably win, but at what cost in the short and long term?
My point: No one is clean in this, no one is innocent, nobody is purely a victim or victimizer; it's a complex relationship of hatred, fear, frustration, and callous abuse by those in high office or the very rich.
@Char.Limit: I doubt that Iran is so far-sighted. After all, they have to know that Israel will strafe their metropolis before they allow a nuclear armed Iran. There's no talking to either nation, both have set themselves on a collision course.
This is all a miserable state of affairs, but all the international community has done is drag this out endlessly for the sake of spice and silk, salt and gold, and now strategic positioning and oil. What should we expect form ALL sides of a conflict when one empire, secular, Islamic, Christian, other... all keep raiding the SAME places? Turkey can barely hold, and they had Ataturk... I see little hope for the future there. Above all, I'm disgusted by the behavior of Arab nations who claim the Palestinians as their brothers, but in practice reject them.
I'll never forget in Kuwait, the only Palestinians you saw (RARELY) were poor...POOR! In Kuwait! On work visas that had to be constantly renewed, because as one friend explained, "they are like mad dogs." What!? If that's how their brothers see them, how does anyone expect Israel to do anything except make that perception reality, and "win" that way?
Hell, look at Egypt, where the military just banned protests... almost as though they hadn't learned a lesson.
What will happen in Syria? What does that mean for Lebanon? Israel is an issue on all sides, pro, anti, and neutral, but it's not the immediate issue until these Arab and Persian thieving royal families get the boot from their own people. That gives a moral high-ground to the Arab and Persian nations, who given time will have forged a real government that can represent their interests.
I just wonder, one that happens, will they still PRETEND to care about the Palestinians?
) 
