Re: Global War on Terror Version 7 - The Nightmare that Threatens the World!!!
That is completely untrue and is as much BS propoganda as you accuse the warhawks in Likud of making. (or the GOPers for that matter) Are they scared...yes. Are they willing to risk Nuclear War...no. It is all posturing they are not going to first strike Iran and they most certainly do NOT want to eliminate all Muslims. If it was as you say, they would just exterminate all the Palestinians that live across the street, you know the ones who blow them up from time to time. Since "they don't give a crap about international law" what is stopping them from doing that exactly?
The picture you and the Left paint of Israel is pretty evil and while Jews trend liberal there is a reason their trust level of the Democratic Party when it comes to Israel is in the crapper. Demonizing Israel (even in the patronizing way you did it above) is pretty pathetic considering what both parties in this country have done in that region and the masters we have there.
You are completely misunderstanding what I've written. None of this has to do with good or evil, it has to do with the Israeli's perception of an existential threat. Let's leave a debate of the merits of that perception aside (though I'll say in passing there are strong reasons on both sides).
Likud's reason to be is the protection of Israel as a Jewish state. Period, end trans. They see themselves surrounded by barbarians brandishing scimitars. They believe there are two things holding back the barbarians: their and the United States' nukes. They believe that without that protection they will be overrun by murderous Arab hoards who will quite literally kill all of them -- an actual, second Holocaust. They further believe that there is no limit on what they are justified in doing to prevent that. None of this is controversial -- they freely say so.
Israel will do what they calculate is best for its long term survival. An apartheid state gives them the most protection they can manage without becoming isolated in the world -- exterminating the Palestinians would cut off the money and arms from the US they need to survive. Opening up the ghettos and respecting Palestinian civil rights is far too dangerous on two counts: it's a security nightmare that will lead to far more bombings, and it recognizes the Palestinians as human beings which undermines their narrative of a brave civilized people beset by barbarian murderers.
They have no choice, or maybe more accurately they are in a constant state of emergency where ordinary civil liberties are suspended. The Israeli left has been trying to dial down the tension in the hopes of restoring a little more legitimacy and less aggressiveness to the formal Israeli position, but at the end of the day the Israeli left does face the same basic calculation.
It is possible to not support what Israel is doing and yet perfectly see the logic in what they're doing. People on both sides of this highly emotional fight act like it has to be one way or the other. It's not; it's real life and thus much more complicated than abstract political principles.
Not sure they'd want to push a button and rid the world of all muslims. What have the Indonesians ever done to them?