Yeah, it's really all about the rhetoric, the spin and the ratings. Other than that, there is total parity in the middle east. People are people and other than geography, there is no difference.
I pose this question:
If the Middle east was composed of 95% Jews, separated into various nations of varying wealth, and 5% Muslims, all concentrated on one piece of land and effectively surrounded, can anyone imagine the Jews supporting (whether passively or actively) the creation and implementation of suicide bomebers in that one isolated Muslim enclave? Can anyone image the Jews creating 'government parties' that not only promote but also actually carry out random rocket attacks on strategically useless targets, all for the purpose of instilling fear in the enemy that they outnumber 20 to 1.
I seriously doubt it. And yes, I've been to the middle east, spent time there, and spoken with the people. If the Israelis are 'snatching' people off the street, then there is at least a minute chance that those people are threatening the security of their nation. At the very least, there is a minute chance that they are receiving medical attention and having their needs attended to.
But all that aside for a moment. I'd like to look at another aspect of this whole exchange, an aspect that I've mentioned before....
The Israelis improve their land, they invest in their people, they grow their society, they make advancements (anyone hear of Buffet's recent acquisition of an Israeli precision machine tools firm?). The Arabs, for all their rhetoric and whining have done little besides pump oil and sell it in order to build resorts and temples either the religion of their god or to the religion of their indulgence, all the while developing an increasingly inhumane, intolerant social view of the Western World as a whole. The Israelis, given, with our help, have developed a technologically advanced society. They are a benefit to humanity as a whole, and, therefore, are worthy of our monetary and military support. If there is intolerance there, it is because it was bred into them, grown over the course of 3 generations spent under passive as well as active siege, and nourished by a constant sense of impending pain, suffering and annihilation. They are surrounded. I know it is a cliche, but it is a valid one. They are surrounded, they know it, and they continue to hang on. They are merely keeping their enemy at bay, while their enemy grows, developes and carries on an ongoing PR campaign that has somehow turned them into the victim and Israel into the oppressor. If Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and whoever else decides to toss their hat into this ring constitute a brotherhood of victims, then please explain to me, who is it exactly that outnumbers and surrounds them?
