Rambling through some of the thoughts these threads have provoked:

It seems the people in the region are caught in a mindless spiral of violence.

The bulk of the criticism is falling on the Israelis, IMO, because anyone who knows anything about Jewish history knows that the Jews know better than any people on Earth what it is to be on the receiving end of violence. The shadow side of that is really an insult to the Arabs, that they have lived this way for so long that they don't know any better, that they believe their own history with such fervor there is no hope for a revisitation of its historiography. The implication is, the Jews (the Israelis) ought to know better, so they are being held to higher standards. If I were an Arab, I would feel very insulted by this, but if I were an Arab living in an Arab country, my education would be so circumscribed that I probably wouldn't understand that I was being treated like a child with an underdeveloped moral sense.

The passive resistance suggestion has been brought up here more than once. I agree, it holds the moral high ground, and always has, because the bully is shown up for all the world to see, and decent people affiliated with the bullies will reexamine their association. It takes a great deal of courage to organize something like that -- especially considering that fanatics on either side will kill people who try it just to prove it won't work. It also takes a sense of community or nationhood that is not fundamentally associated with violence. Nationhood on both sides of the Middle East conflict is fundamentally associated with violence. We will never see it happen there, unless the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian mothers make common cause (the way Protestant and Catholic women did in Northern Ireland) to shame the men into caring more about the children than about their territorial claims. The women of the region appear to have been swept into the maelstrom of hate. This is what happens when your babies are blown up by mines or suicide assassins and your meals are disrupted by human bombs and tanks in the kitchen. "Domestic life" has become an oxymoron in the Middle East.

On the one hand, killing civilians to make a point is wrong. On the other hand, it's just as wrong if you're in uniform. Let's see the numbers, the lists of who has died and who has been crippled under what conditions, and let's see the Israelis and the Arabs let foreign journalists into all the areas under armed discussion. We all know reporters and news photographers are crazy enough to go. There's nothing quite like the threat of the whole world seeing you shoot a 12-year-old on the front page of the paper to make you resist the urge. If you shoot a 12-year-old holding a rifle, on the other hand, the world will blame whoever gave a rifle to a child.

If you were an Arab, and were 20 years old, and the roadblocks and curfews and shootings and restrictions on your livelihood and your future were all you knew and all you could expect to know, and you saw Goliath in a tank coming at you, would you not wonder whether the Israelis had forgotten that David also threw rocks once? It's their Book too.

I read here that the Israelis should not be expected to lay down and die. No, they shouldn't. But I wonder, what doth it profit a nation, to gain the entire Holy Land but lose its national soul?

Somewhere there's a loose string to this rat's nest, and I wish I knew where it was. Useful, non-exploitive employment for Arab youth might be one, if only they could get home from work without being shot. It helps, in discouraging suicide bombing, to give the suicides something real to look forward to.

Frankly, I'm tired of the Blame Game. There's been enough violence to go around, and not nearly enough justification to warrant all the misery. Hacking away at this particular Gordian Knot with a sword has not worked for anyone.

But then, I don't live there. Mercifully.

Regards--
Mary Anne