Reply #59: I can explain, at least in part [View All]

[Nevernose]

I find it interesting that whenever a post about Israel's influence on U. S. foreign policy appears on the DU boards, it is invariably attacked as being anti-Jewish. Why is that? Is it just a knee-jerk reaction? Please explain.

Because many responses to Israel any time mentioned appear to be "knee-jerk reactions." Because more often than is comfortable, anything, and I mean ANYTHING, that the Israeli government does is considered to be at best self-serving and at worst (and more often than not) downright evil.

Take for instance unilaterally pulling out of the Gaza Strip. Everything the Palestinians wanted? No, but a step in the right direction, and they still took shit for it on DU as if pulling the settlers out of Gaza was a page from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

A couple of years ago when that 15 year old suicide bomber backed out at the last minute. and the press got pictures of him crying for help at an Israeli checkpoint? There were people here who said it was all an Israeli ploy to make the Palestinians look bad.

Personally, I don't see it as anti-Semitism as much as a knee-jerk anti-Israeli viewpoint. I've been at DU longer than most, and maybe it's the Unitarian in me seeking to get out, but I'm of the opinion that all too many people here, on any subject you care to choose, are radically black-or-white. Name the paradigm: Israel or Palestine? Red state or blue? South evil/ North benevolent? Or vice/versa on any of these subjects, and a hundred more?

(And if you want my opinion on the I/P conflict, for the record, I'll give it to you: the only thing, and I do mean the ONLY thing, saving Israel from total damnation in my eyes is that despite the inadvertant killing of women and children, they're "retaliating" against enemies instead of purposely killing women and children. Other than that, a few missiles fired from an American-made Apache helicopter aren't any better than a suicide bomber hitting a cafe in Tel Aviv. If I were on a jury in a civil court, I would vote for a 60/40 split of culpability. The sooner the right-winger Israelis and the right-winger Palestinians learn to get along, the better for the rest of the world.)