Reply #78: That's just the problem. I'm not living in the 1940's, this IS [View All]

[Colorado Blue]

2005, and the same sort of rhetoric spouted by Hitler and subsequently by a succession of people in the Middle East, is still vigorously alive.

I just read an article that the Iranians have now offered a bounty of $10,000 if Islamic Jihad will fire rockets on Tel Aviv. So it's more than just rhetoric. People have died, will die, because of this hatred.

Also - the fact that Israel has a powerful military means absolutely zip, past a certain point. War isn't the desire of Israel, but peace. The military isn't really all that useful at obtaining peace - as we have seen. No amount of military firepower can change attitudes, or heal the wounds of the past.

And what a ghastly tragedy it would be were nukes EVER to be used again. The Israeli military could probably have squashed her neighbors ten times over but that isn't the idea! The idea is to live side by side with the neighbors, not to destroy them - bigoted ideas about Zionism to the contrary notwithstanding. The disenfranchisement of Arabs was absolutely NEVER the intention of Zionism, and nor is "world domination". Yet I see these attitudes toward Zionism expressed not just by neonazis or hardline Islamist leaders and mullahs, but by people who consider themselves progressives. This is a serious problem and one that no amount of military power can overcome.