Hi. The name is Leonard. I am almost 16, and sometimes I peek around this forum while waiting for Zero Punctuation to load. You have a wonderful community. Hope I will get absorbed into it quickly.
So, anyway: I live in Raanana, Israel. It's a beutiful city. Small, hardly a city by most standards, and most people are old and creepily religious. But it is a very calm and beutiful place, too. The swamp that was once here is all but gone. Our city has amazing gardens and parks, the education is considerd very good and there is almost no crime.
I lived in Raanana my whole life. In fact, so did my father and grandfather(His father came from Russia). So I am an Israeli in blood and in heart. That makes me the worst or the best guy to ask about this topic, depending on who you ask. By the way, today is Yom Ha'Shoa in Israel. (If you read this post, please send a short prayer to all the Holocaust victims. They deserve it). Next week is Yom Ha'Zikaron.(In which we remember the victims of the wars that plagued Israel since it's birth), so I decided to join this forum so that I can at least add something to this discussion that troubles us all. It is the right thing to do, I belive.
So you are asking what is my opinion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? I will be very honest with you: I think that nobody here, not me, not you, not even most politicians in or out of Israel know enugh about the subject to have an actual opinion. I have had the pleasure and the honour to meet a man who devoted his whole lift to the study of this very topic, yet even he said that he would never be able to form a good opinion because humans as a species, no matter how they hide it, are at their core biased, self serving assholes who only care about themselves and themselves and themselves.
He is very right. I live this conflict ever since I was born. My girlfriend, a girl that I cared about very much, was killed by a Palestinian rocket* a few weeks ago. My older brother, a man who I care very much about Will never be the same after the horrors he saw during his service. Yet I force myself not to hate the Pelestinians, because I know this hate will not be justified and will make me as bad as all the others around here who know nothing about the conflict and simply shout to be heard.
I am eqully disgusted and filled with pity when I see a six years old Palestinian boy in the news or the six years old orthodox boy from next door shouting that the [other side] are all evil bloodthirsty warmongering monsters and that they will gladly sacrafice their lives to destroy [other side].
I DO NOT think that the settlers\colonists\however they are called in your place(We call tham Mitnachalim) have any right to set up their rickity villages on Palestinian territory(Israel is doing it's best to demolish those, but they are zealous and fanatic and just settle somwhere else). I also DO NOT think Palestinians have the right to kidnap soldiers or send suicide bombers into shopping malls or bus stations befor they tried peacful negotiations(And don't tell me they did. When the solution was suggested that would give the two peoples an equal shar of the land(I actually think they were promised more but I don't remember clearly and I don't want to say anythink dangerous), the jews agreed, but the arabs just started making threats that eventually escalated into a very bloody war whose peorpse was TOTAL ANNIHILATION of the jewish people).
I do not think Tzahal(You call tham the IDF, right?) soldiers have the right to use innocent bystanders as meat shields or targate practice(They say they "suspected they might be carrying weapons", but I don't belive tham. They were just bloodthirsty fanatics no better than the suicide bombers and I am happy they were severely punished. I also do not think the Palestinians have any right to attack civialians all day with kasams(My aforementioned girlfriend had to the shelter ten times a day a few years ago). Note that I do not pity the Palestinian civilians killed in bombing runs: I don't know if you heard about it, but Tzahal makes it a practice of alwayes sending warning to Palestinian leaders befor performing one. The fact that the civilians are not evacuated immediately proves either that said leaders are stuiped, powerless, or twisted to the point of sacraficing dozens of innocent Palestinians for the sake of making Israel look bad. Also note that we Tzahal makes utmost effort to avoid collateral damage when bombing, even if it makes their job a thousands times more difficult. Unlike, say, one country whose name I can't quite recall who naplamed the shit out of another country some forty years ago. They also used chemical weapons, but that is another thing already.
I do not think we have a right to own Jerusalem. I do not think anybody has. If it was up to me I would say the place needs to be blown the fuck up to solve many many many problems. But it is not up to me.
If there was a peacful resolution available it would be great. But their is not. Both sides are to stubborn and both hate the other side so unconditionally that this would likely never happen.
Israel alwayes was, is now, and will likely alwayes be at a state of war. It is a shame, but we simply have no other place to go. This is our home. This is where we were born. This is the land of our ancestors and this of of our children. The arabics can, of course, say the exact same and nobody would ever be able to prove he is right.
You must understand: Today is the day where our whole country goes silent in remembrance of the Holocaust. Today is the day where we are most aware of the fact that Israel is our only home, our only sanctuary in a world that hates us, whether there is a reason or ther is not. And we will protect this haven no matter what, because we truly can't go anywhere else.
We jews went through hell. Some of us, less than a half of us, survived, albeit with scars to their very souls. They came here following dreams and prophecies thousands of years old, expacting to find peace. They never did. Critisize Israel at your leisure, but please, don't deny us the only thing we have.
P.S. My younger brother, four years old asked me just a minuete ago what I was doing. I said that I am telling people in far away lands that Israel is not evil. He was quite and then he said "Please tell tham that we are not evil. We do not like to kill. It is sad.". How very touching.
P.P.S. Don't listen to what the media tells you. The media is alwayes biased. This war saw the burned corpses of Israeli and Palestinian babies. Most networks will only show you one, quietly forgetting about the other). It is the way media works. It is a shame.
* She lived in Sderot. Not a good idea at all. By the way, my ex girlfriend died of brain cancer, and the one before her in a car accident. Someome up there wants me to stay alone, I susspose.
Good evening, everyone.
Leonard
