Sunday, February 10, 2008

A not so creative discussion

So I decided last week to start checking out the blogs of my classmates, (Google Reader is especially useful for keeping up to date), and I came across this post talking about why one writer was going to "Grudgingly Vote for Obama." His explanation caught my attention:

(Question from a previous comment):Why do you view Obama as evil? (as in "lesser of the evils"). Also if you don't mind, could you explain to me what the general political trend of Muslim Americans is?
There is one key issue in particular that Muslims are constantly thinking about...that of the Palestinians. In short, the horrible humanitarian crisis that has been caused by Israel's collective punishment type of thinking is unacceptable.

I replied to the post, objecting to the idea that Israel believes we should punish the people in Gaza and the West Bank for the actions of terrorists. As I explained:
Israel lacks any good options in dealing with guerrilla terrorism, and so, left only the only bad ones, it chooses to err on the side of keeping its people alive. When palestinians stop sheltering people they know to have committed terrorist acts, and when the PA stops paying the families of suicide bombers who are killing innocent Israeli citizens, then we can talk about whose side is really trying to avoid promoting collective punishment.
I got an anonymous reply (the irony was palpable) explaining what the true reason for our current situation was:
For the record, nothing is going to move forward in that region until the Jews learn the real lessons of the Holocaust and they quit electing bloodthirsty war criminals like Ariel Sharon to the post of prime minister.

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