[thechat] READ AT YOUR OWN RISK: Open Letter to America from a Canadian

[Paul Cowan]

Sean G. wrote:
> An Israeli killing a Palestinian is "slaughter" and "terror" but a
> Palestinian killing an Israeli, well, that's the Israeli's fault too.
> Bullshit.  It's bigotry, plain and simple.  An Israeli life is worth just
as
> much as a Palestinian.

Yep. The answer to this one is simple. Both sides (Israeli and Palestinian)
are full of terrorists. Plain and simple. I'm probably going to get knifed
for saying this, but if you think it is OK to kill innocent people, be
it suicide bombing or military action, you are beneath contempt and unworthy
of the title of "human".

I don't care who I piss off with this opinion: the state of Israel and the
autonomous region of Palestine are both as bad as each other. Frankly,
I'm about 5 more suicide attacks and civilian bombings away from officially
changing my attitude to "move everyone out and irradiate the ground to
within an inch of its life"... the old 'mum' trick of "if you can't play
nice, neither of you can have it". I mean... HONESTLY. They're like
spoilt kids having a fight over a toy, but instead of bad-mouthing the
other one's sisters, they're KILLING each other's sisters.

Now I'm no PhD in middle-eastern politics, but you know what it seems to
me the fundamental problem is? *Both sides are right*. This is a fact
that seems beyond comprehension to everyone involved in the debate. No,
the fact that the land was 'Jewish' land long before Christ was a twinkle
in his father's eye does NOT mean that the Palestinians have no claim to
it. Correspondingly, no, the fact that it has been 'Arab' land for the
last thousand years after the Jews moved out doesn't mean that the Jews
have no claim to it. Modern political thought does not seem to allow
for both sides being right... it's some sort of error condition which
people just can't cope with.

How do you solve this dilemma? I don't know. But I DO know that when your
argument consists of "you're wrong, because..." repeated over and over
again,
no-one's getting anywhere. To say 'one side must be right and one wrong'
is nonsensically infantile in this situation (and patently untrue).

No, I'm not Jewish, and I'm not Arabic. I'm just fucking sick of seeing
little kids and other people who *couldn't give two shits what race
their next-door neighbours are* getting blown to pieces in a pizza shop
or having their apartments bombed while they're trying to watch some
Middle-Eastern version of Wheel Of Fortune because some other people
are so earth-shatteringly dense that they actually think that theirs
is a just war.

They make me sick. *All of them*.

Paul

PS: with an easily-mispronounced surname like mine, I admit that I AM
often *mistaken* for a member of one of those ethnic groups...