I quoted below a bit of Lileks’ comments on the terrorist attacks in Israel yesterday — 18 dead (plus the two suicide bombers, of course), 100 wounded.
What I find interesting is that his feelings about it — a barely-restrained fury — not only echo my own, but that I found just the same thing on SDB’s page:
But increasingly I’m finding myself feeling as if the world would be better off if someone went in and shot every damned one of them and piled the lot in an unmarked grave. After reading about yet another Palestinian atrocity, I find myself thinking, “Fuck it. Nuke Ramallah. Then nuke Nablus. And if that doesn’t help, bulldoze Gaza. And once that’s done, put all fifty surviving Palestinians on a freighter, tow it out to sea, and let them become someone else’s problem.”
I know that’s wrong. I know it could never happen, and that it will never happen, and that it should never happen, and I would never actually advocate anything like that. But what I’m finding is that every time I read about a Palestinian being killed by the Israelis, my first emotional reaction is, “Good riddance.” I’ve reached the point where I feel nothing at all when I read about them dying. I have reached the point where I don’t care at all, not even slightly, about their pain and hardship. They have ceased to be persons to me. I’m no longer even interested in hearing their side of the story.
I said interesting. I shoud have said scary.
At least scary to me. And, if there are any sane people among the Palestinians, to them, too.
Are you saying you agree or disagree…it’s kind of fuzzy. 🙂
I agree that I get such feelings, and that they probably color my more rational analysis of Middle Eastern events. I also agree with SDB that they are not a policy course I would see pursued … but, damn …
Exactly. We see the news blurb and look at each other and say, “Kill ’em all,” knowing how horrid a reality that would be. Somehow it helps though, to just come out and say it, eases the frustration a little bit…until the next time.
As long as all of us don’t say it at the same time …
I’m sure this has been said before, but when folks are urging Americans to ask, “Why do they hate us?” it might be worthwhile for the Palestinians to ask themselves the same thing.
Welcome, SDB readers. Nice to have you here. Feel free to poke around, or set a spell.
It’s getting more and more difficult to feel any sympathy for the “plight” of the Palestinians, whose troubles more and more are being revealed as mostly self-inflicted. Over on Little Green Footballs someone asked the question (I paraphrase): “Why feel any sympathy for the Arabs?” (They said Arabs, not just Palestinians, because I think the subject was the so-called rage-filled “Arab street” or something.) I replied something along the lines of, it’s a part of the better side of human nature to feel sorry for a people who seem to be in such distress, and to want to help them get better. Then I said something like: but when the hand of friendship is continually rejected, when the helping hand isn’t just bitten but chewed off and spat out, then sympathy inevitably diminishes. Me? I’m all out of hands.
I do feel sympathy for the Palestinians — their only real potential friends in the area, the Israelis, are the ones they’ve been most fomented to hate by the neighboring states who certainly don’t seem to be falling all over themselves doing anything for them but supplying arms, death insurance, and inflammatory rhetoric.
But, then, I feel sorry for folks who have been so twisted by childhood abuse that they reenact that abuse on others. But that doesn’t give them a pass, and it doesn’t mean they don’t have to be dealt with humanely but firmly.
Then there are those of us who look at the situation and feel like saying “Fuck it. Nuke Tel Aviv.”
I suspect that would make Israel a lot more instransigent about considering Jerusalem their capitol.
I’m certainly not saying that Israel has been blameless in this whole affair. But, damn, the Israelis aren’t launching strafing runs into crowded markets and cafes and busses or wherever they can kill the most Palestinian civilians. They’re not teaching their kids that Arabs and Muslims are dogs and should be killed. They’re not holding street celebrations about Palestinian civilian casualties. And they’re not gunning down their own dissidents in the street, either.
There’s no question of moral equivalency here, to my way of thinking.
[SARCASM] Thanks for adding the voice of reason, John! What would we do without Good People™ like you! [/SARCASM]
Now, Andrea… I don’t seriously want such a thing to happen, just as Den Beste isn’t really advocating what’s in his comments above. What I’m saying is that for those who sometimes feel “Nuke Ramallah. Then nuke Nablus. And if that doesn’t help, bulldoze Gaza” is the solution there are others who feel that “Nuke Tel Aviv” and bulldozing flat every single illegal Israeli settlement in the Occupied Territories would be a just and lasting solution as well.
To slightly reword a line from Den Beste’s later update: “I am trying to point out the depths of my revulsion, and even of outright hatred, for the way the Israelis have been operating.” That’s my emotional reaction.
While the whole legal/illegal thang can be reasonably debated until the cows come home, I agree that Israeli settlements have been both provocative and unjust.
On the other hand, it’s clear that there’s a substantial number of people who consider Israel itself a “settlement,” and won’t rest until it’s been bulldozed to the ground, preferably with its inhabitants under the dirt.
Frankly, for all the incidents of abuse, the Israelis have operated with incredible restraint given the barbarities unleashed against them. Any other nation — certainly any other nation in the region — would have simply resolved the problem in a violent, but far more permanent, fashion.
I am required to link to Andrea’s comments on the situation in her own blog. Nicely put, Andrea, particularly the last paragraph.
Wow. It may be that there are some sane people amongst the Palestinians still.
Though SDB speculates that the reason for recent violence is not actually to war on Israel, but a covert civil war amongst Palestinian groups to succeed Arafat. Which doesn’t make it any more defensible, of course, and may well mean things get worse before they get better. Assuming they get better.
It’s obvious the only solution has to come from “outside”! Domestic violence and national violence are bred from the same fears. Those who are fearful of those who live in an intimate codependcy need to listen to an “objective” point of view of their situation.
Hate destroys the hater as much as it destroys the hated.
Try to find the people in your midst who have risen above their emotional hatred and are working towards a peaceful solution.
My heart cries for you and your families and friends but it also cries out for the families and friends of your enemies too. Of course, my tears don’t save anyone or solve anything so they’re just as futile as your anger. God’s heart, on the other hand, makes all the difference. So pray through your fears, through your tears. through your hate, through your love, through your life and pray for your enemy who is as entitled as you to live in peace. I’m praying for all of you. God Bless. Andie from Canada.