I've never actually heard an Israeli
or any Jew, for that matter, using that argument in genuine debate.
It seems to be more of a myth put about by those who dislike Israel who either believe that that's the reason Israel behaves the way it does or in an attempt to discredit past atrocities.
Israel was established despite the holocaust, not because of it. The reason Israel behaves the way it does is because having a power-hungry organisation throwing rockets at your civilians with the obvious intent to cause psychological and physical harm is sure as hell casus belli.
If you want to moan at anyone about the plight of the Palestinians look at Hamas, which built no shelters for them with their steady flow of money, but instead bought weapons and personal wealth, look at the Arab states which have only ever used them as a distraction and method of furthering their own goals.
Arabs under Egyptian rule are often far worse off than Arabs under Israeli rule - you have the right level of cynicism, you're just pointing it in the wrong direction.
The problem is that maybe only 20% of Palestinian Arabs support terrorist acts, but 100% of terrorist outrages that take place in Israel are performed by Arabs. So when a bomb goes off the Israelis see "The arabs are at it again" and go off on another little quest, as a result the 80% of Palestinians feel they're being unjustly targeted and so turn to justify the other 20%. Hamas knows and knew full well that the rocket fire on Israel will only serve to make Gazan lives worse, they'd have to be right idiots not to know that, and whatever they are they're definitely not idiots. They're using the Israeli reaction to their advantage. But were Israel not to react, what then? More rockets and an oppressive regime, much along the same ideological lines as Saudi Arabia, in power.
If Hamas gets control of a future Palestinian state then you'll just have another Saudi Arabia, but with no oil, so nothing going for it!
(, Wed 14 Jan 2009, 17:37, Reply)
What the fuck is wrong with people
Fucking religion
(
The Coast Of Yemen, Wed 14 Jan 2009, 17:52,
Reply)
And sadly the strong must be restrained when dealing with the weak.
Going off on another quest is, essentially, pure evil.
(
LordManley twitter.com/LordManley, Wed 14 Jan 2009, 19:51,
Reply)