I've got pretty thick skin, and the responses thus far have been quite well reasoned and rational, so I'm doing ok ;-)
As for Israel, I think there's one significant factor that sets them apart from many other targets of terrorism. The Israeli citizens who are being attcaked not only support the government's actions by not voting differently, but also more directly by moving onto the land and even into the houses from which the former occupants were removed under threat or force by the Israeli government and military. When the women and children you're killing are living in the house that was stolen from you, it's a lot harder to perceive them as innocent victims.
I'm not saying what Hamas is doing is necessarily the Right Thing; a lot of wars/skirmishes/whatever aren't. But I definately think that what Israel has done and continues to do is the Wrong Thing, and the Palestinians are within their rights to fight back. Israel started the dirty fighting, and if the Palestinians choose to fight dirty when they fight back, I don't think that's enough to classify them as terrorists.
<sarcasm level=50%>The simple solution for an Israeli citizen to significantly reduce risk to their person would be to avoid moving to an area that was unjustly taken from Palestinians. <sarcasm level=100%>Oh, but wait, that would rule out most of the area occupied by Israel today. Darn.</sarcasm> |
