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Today only a tiny minority of outsiders see Israelis as victims. The true victims, it is now widely accepted, are the Palestinians. Indeed, Palestinians have now displaced Jews as the emblematic persecuted minority: vulnerable, humiliated and stateless. This unsought distinction does little to advance the Palestinian case any more than it ever helped Jews, but it has redefined Israel forever. It has become commonplace to compare Israel at best to an occupying colonizer, at worst to the South Africa of race laws and Bantustans. In this capacity Israel elicits scant sympathy even when its own citizens suffer: Dead Israelis - like the occasional assassinated white South African in the apartheid era, or British colonists hacked to death by native insurgents - are typically perceived abroad not as the victims of terrorism but as the collateral damage of their own government's mistaken policies.

Such comparisons are lethal to Israel's moral credibility. They strike at what was once its strongest suit: the claim of being a vulnerable island of democracy and decency in a sea of authoritarianism and cruelty; an oasis of rights and freedoms surrounded by a desert of repression. But democrats don't fence into Bantustans helpless people whose land they have conquered, and free men don't ignore international law and steal other men's homes. The contradictions of Israeli self-presentation - "we are very strong/we are very vulnerable"; "we are in control of our fate/we are the victims"; "we are a normal state/we demand special treatment" - are not new: they have been part of the country's peculiar identity almost from the outset. And Israel's insistent emphasis upon its isolation and uniqueness, its claim to be both victim and hero, were once part of its David versus Goliath appeal.

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Originally posted by ziffhasnoaim/password

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These terrorists (Hezbollah) DO wear uniforms.

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Originally posted by Vyper

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Ok, so there's one flawed point in my argument. The rest of it still stands.

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Originally posted by Vyper

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It is unfortuante that you don't hear about the hundreds, dare I say thousands, of innocent Israelies slaughtered on a daily basis by these two despicable, cowardly terrorist organizations.

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Originally posted by Jin Dogan

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Originally posted by Vyper

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Ok, so there's one flawed point in my argument. The rest of it still stands.

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Pwned Again:

Originally posted by Vyper

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It is unfortuante that you don't hear about the hundreds, dare I say thousands, of innocent Israelies slaughtered on a daily basis by these two despicable, cowardly terrorist organizations.

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Maybe because there aren't HUNDREDS of Israelis killed everyday! Seriously, where do you get your facts?

I just love how the US is speeding up delivery of these bombs for Israel to rain down upon Lebanon and still tries to come across as an intermediary.

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Originally posted by ziffhasnoaim/password

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Cumulative on a daily basis?

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Originally posted by geeogree

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worth it?

if your country had soldiers kidnapped what would it do?

go kick some ass and get them back. Israel is defending itself and probably trying to wipe Hezbollah off the map in the process. Israel has the right to be doing what it is doing. Armed militants in the south of Lebanon declared war when those soldiers were kidnapped. If the war is to end, those soldiers have to be returned and Hezbollah needs to disband. Otherwise Israel will continue to attack until to reaches those same goals it's way resulting in more death but eventual victory for Israel.

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