Like most postings in this blog, this one is my responce to a Plastic poster suggesting that the only way to resolve the troubles in the middle east is to start fresh: ie let generations go by so that hatereds are forgotten. The author pointed out that he knew his own proposals were un-realistic. But I had to pipe in with this little bit of opinion:

Your idea about kindergarteners may fail, according to this:

Six days a week, kindergarten teacher Samira Ali El Hassain tells her class of 30 5-year-old boys and girls what makes the world go round.

"Here is how an egg becomes a chicken," she says to a student. "Here is how to draw a circle," she tells another.

Hassain then quizzes the class about a previous, more serious lesson. "Who are the Jews?" she asks.

The children know the answer by heart: "The enemy!" they reply in unison.

"And what should we do to them?" Hassain asks in a voice that is as casual as when she discussed chickens and eggs.

"Kill them!" the children cry out.

...

On the walls, graffiti calls on residents to "kill the Jews" and "die like shahid (martyrs)" -- the men and women who have died trying to kill Israelis. Instructions on how to become a shahid are spray-painted, along with photos of weapons, exploding buses and portraits of men wrapped in explosives.

And if that isn't enough to convince Gaza's children -- many of whom spend their days roaming the dusty streets, playing in sandbag barricades, shooting toy assault rifles and throwing stones at each other -- hatred of Israelis is part of their kindergarten lesson plan.

"I tell them that they are Palestinians, that they must defend their land when they grow up, that this land belongs to them and not to the Jews, our enemies," said the 35-year-old Hassain. "Every morning, I ask them: 'Did you watch the news? Do you love the enemy who massacres the Palestinian people? Would you want to make peace with them when you grow up?' "

...

etc etc...

The point of most of my pro-Israeli postings on Plastic has been that Palestinians are a culture of hate and that a dialogue/negotiations with them are doomed to failure. And no, I am not advocating they be bombed into extinction to solve the problem, but it seems that the status quo is the only possibility. The Palestinians won't conveniently learn to accept Israel and the Israelis won't conviniently remove themselves from the middle east, so there will always be friction and hate. If you really want to solve the problem long-term, go after the foreign governments like Syria ans Saudi Arabia and Iraq that raise money to support hate-education among Palestinian children. Hold the EU responsible for funding schools where the school books have no mention of Israel. Your basic point is correct: there will be generations before possibility of peaceful coexistance is attained. But you're wrong to think it's equaly bad on both sides. The youth of Israel seem to be favoring a Palestinian state and there's a significant leftist movement that, like all leftists in the West, decry the occupation totally. If peace came, of course there'd be many who resent co-existance with Arabs, but they will be a tiny minority. Most will just be happy once the violence stops. On the Palestinian side, I don't think the same dynamic exists. The youth are endoctrinated into hatered early, and a movement for co-existance with Israel is simply not present. It's not hard to see that most Arabs are unhappy not simply with the violence, not simply with the occupation, but with the presence of Israel and Jews in general.

So yeah, the problem is much as you see it on the surface of it, but you're wrong to blame both sides. Not that it makes a difference in the result, I guess.

 
Not only was there no massacre in Jenin, it now seems like things in the Church of the Nativity happened the way Israel has claimed all along as well. Behold this.

The boys that Israel has claimed all along to be hostages indeed seem to be pretty happy to have left the company of their compatriots, and judging by the looks on their faces quite comfortable to be surrounded by Israelis. Haven't heard about this on the news, other than that some people have come out. I want to hear some acknowledgement that Israel was right all along. But no one cares, and no one will remember.

 
Victim of one's success
I am Jewish, so it would be natural for me to support Israel. But infact, when I was younger I thought it was horrible what they were doing to the Palestinians, that they should stop, etc. As I grew older, perhaps less liberal, and studied the subject more, my view had to shift.

I think it's natural for us to think the Palestinians are victims. They are the "little guy" and they don't have anything. So they must be fighting because they're deprived of human status, they must be fighting because there's no other way.

The fallacy of the above is that we are liberal westerners and it's hard for us to think that any people would chose fighting and violence over peace and prosperity. It's impossible for us to really relate to the fact that Palestinians would rather fight and live in poverty than accept co-existance, which will bring security and prosperity. So we can't wrap our heads around their behaviour other than to label it as desperate. We can't accept that they stick to a leader that will bring fight and hate rather than a promise of peace, so we look for excuses and justifications. We simply can't imagine people being so different from us, and thus we're likely to ask ourselves: "what would make ME act this way?" The question leads to no answer except that Israel is inherently evil, bad, etc.

This logic really assumes that the Palestinians are part of the same culture we are. It may not be so. Plenty of good arguments have been made that they're a culture of death and hate, and their rationalle is imposible for the west to relate to. Think of it this way: if I told you that someone ate a human being, you'd likely assume that this person was insane, or starving, because you'd ask yourself "what would it take for me to resort to that?" But history tells us that plenty of Pacific people had a culture of canibalism, where they did this kind of stuff and it was perfectly normal. I hope you get the point - just because it would take a certain amount of provocation for us to act a certain way, doesn't mean that it takes the same for another culture.

It has come to be that Arab violence against Israel is seen as an indication Israel's brutality - what else would make Arabs want to kill? But Israel's actions are generally painted as agression, not defense. When we hear on the news about the latest Israeli action, the most "balanced" reports will contrast and compare it to the latest Arab attack. But few discuss the fact that the action of the last few weeks was the first Israely response in a long time, while suicide bombings have gone on forever. The news likes to assault you with body counts, whereas contexts of what happened usually gets ignored. The headline is more likely to say "Israel Surrounds Arafat's Componud" than "Arafat Shelters 6 Killers Wanted for Murder of Israely Minister in His Compound."

It's natural, in conclusion, to feel bad for the poor little Palestinians deprived of their homeland by the rich big fat jews. It takes quite a bit of research to understand things to be a little [a lot] more complex than that.