🚀 go-pugleaf

Returning from lunch, I was deflated to have seen *Chicago Paddling-Fishing* 
write this:

> In chi.general I'm Not Mentok <CaptOzone9@aim.plotz.com> wrote:

>> Who fired first, huh?!?  Israel isn't allowed to defend itself?
>
> I think at this point it's impossible to tell who fired first...

Categorically and demonstrably *false*.

> it seems whenever there is a considerable lull in the action though Israel 
> takes a
> shot at someone they say is a terrorist leader and the violence starts anew.
>
> I'm not sure either side wants peace at this point...

Again, *false*.  There will only be peace when those who call for elimination of 
Israel cease their efforts and/or are effectively incapacitated altogether.  We 
cannot expect the U.N. to do this, as corrupt and complicit as they are in 
seeing to the demise of Israel.

Who, by the way, are the ones who strap bombs onto themselves and destroy buses, 
ice cream parlors, discos and other public places in order to kill as many Jews 
as possible?  Are these provoked attacks?  Obviously *not*.  Does not Israel 
have the right to eliminate those who would foment this sort of mass destruction 
of their innocents by destroying the roots of the tree?  Of course they do.

Hezbollah - who, by the way, has effectively hijacked the governmental structure 
of Lebanon or, at the very least, has their tacit permission to act - started 
this instance by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers, who, at last hearing/reading, 
are still being held captive.  There will only be peace when the Islamofascist 
terrorist orgs (PLO, Hezbollah, Hamas, et. al.) and nation-states (Iran, Syria, 
et. al.) quit behaving like schoolyard bullies and stop declaring that Israel 
must be eliminated and that all Jews must die simply because they are Jewish. 
What, I ask rhetorically, is so inherently despicable about Jews that millions 
would prefer to see them wiped off the face of the Earth and, for that matter 
(and at the risk of invoking Godwin's Law), where have we seen this before, 
hmmm?  Accept the *fact* that the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" has been 
proven to be a heinous fiction.  The term "Zionism" has been perverted by those 
who would see their ultimate destruction to mean some nefarious - but 
non-existent - world domination conspiracy.  Patently ridiculous.

Let's look at it this way and in as simplistic an analogy as possible:  a person 
sitting on his bought-and-paid-for property, minding his own business, having 
had restored to him what was rightfully his in the first place, now has 
neighbors on three sides of him saying, for illogically twisted reasons, that he 
is *not* entitled to this ownership and engage in a course of continual 
harrassment;  throwing garbage in his yard, burning bags of dog doo on his front 
porch, vandalizing his personal effects and wage a non-stop series of 
propaganda, verbal haranguing and supposed victimhood.  He is a "threat" by 
simply existing, according to his harrassers.

The property owner has made, or at least offered, all manner of concessions to 
appease his tormentors in order to achieve a "peace", only to have his efforts 
rebuffed, ignored or be met with continued, _unprovoked_ violence.

The harrassers then have the absolute gall to claim that if this person were 
simply to move away, or better, die altogether, then they would discontinue this 
harrassment and then, and only then, would there be "peace" in the neighborhood.

If, in defense of this person's property, he decides to take action, he, in a 
warped twist of illogic, is inexplicably considered to be the aggressor and the 
instigator of unrest and violence, when, of course, the reverse - and ONLY the 
reverse - is true.  After all, which one of us can only take so much when being 
continually provoked, prodded, poked and harrassed and not expect to take some 
measure of retaliatory action?  Just think of someone who tormented you back in 
grade school.  Did you just sit and suffer in silence, or did you do something 
about it?  One punch is usually all it took for me - and *only* as a last 
resort - but the result was permanent and the bullying stopped.  Can we not give 
this man the same degree of latitude?

Yes, and only yes.

Notice that I have left out all references to race, religion and nationality in 
this analogy, but the inferences are implied.

<stepping off my Hyde Park soapbox now>

-- 
I'm *Not* Mentok