I'm overwhelmed

Wow. I really appreciate the comments - from all of you: Zeinobia, Blue, EngineeringChange, march14yuppi and Mohamed Maher.

You all wrote so much, it will take me a while to digest everything you said. The time I can allocate to blogging is somewhat limited, as I also have a family and a job... so what I plan to do is to address your comments across several posts - a few points in each post, in no particular order. Please excuse me for not being able to answer everything at once.


Zeinobia, thank you for accepting my invitation. I also wanted to tell you that I really appreciate what you said to "egyptian" on your blog. I hope one day he will be able to join discussions such as ours.

In your letter to me you said:
> I am afraid this mutual respect is lost from your side not from ours

Indeed, some people on my side have lost this respect for your side. A very large number have not. I am glad I have the opportunity to demonstrate this to you, and I am even happier to learn that there is still such respect on your side.


> This mutual respect means that our children are not less than your
> children , our civilians are not less value than yours
> Believe me I would feel the same if this baby was Israeli ,angry
> and sad because I am human

I believe you. And please believe me - there are soooo many Israelis who share your view. We are also human. Seeing dead babies is so terrible, most of us simply choose not to look. There are many dead babies on the Israeli side, too.

> second because I am a muslim , Islam respects human rights
> and doesn't call for fight except if the other starts it and in
> this case your government started ,it starts it every single time

Zeinobia - I have a feeling this may be a key point to our discussion. Please allow me to save my answer to this, and to the rest of your letter, to an upcoming post.



EngineeringChange, you said:
> I.B you said "We need to understand what is driving
> the current hatred, and what can be done to stop it."
> Although the history is crucial, I think this way
> of thinking does need to prevail to reach peace.

I am so glad you agree with me. This will help us engage in a meaningful discussion. You asked me why I think the Arabs are angry at us. I will try to answer your question in the next few days. I have much to think about here - and this dialog, with all of you, is helping me learn.



Blue, thank you for joining. You said:
> I know your open dialoged was addressing
> Zenobia, but I believe that you mean open
> dialogue with anyone in the 1st place. So please
> allow me to take part :)

I addressed Zeinobia because I saw in her blog that she and I share respect for human lives. Your blog is in Arabic, so I couldn't read it :-) But I have a feeling we share that same respect. Of course you are welcome to take part!


Blue, you asked - "Do you think any arab would be convinced with such phrase" (And the more we fear, the harder we bite)".

I wasn't trying to convince anyone. I was simply stating my opinion. It is based on personal introspection, and on observations of human beings. I think it is true of Arabs just as it is true of Israelis. (It is also true of cats, BTW :-)

I believe march14yuppi shares my view here. He pointed this out when he said:

> You beleive tha the power of the israeli army
> comes from fear and not from F16s? That's fine by me.
> then you should be in the best position to understand
> why your actions are making hizbollah and their
> supporters stronger. You are augmenting their hatered
> and fear from you.

@march14yuppi: You and I are in total agreement here. I don't think many Israelis doubt that we've planted the seeds for Hizballa 2.0. The vast majority of Israelis simply feel, at the current time, that we have no other choice. This just shows what fear can do.

As for the F-16s: yes, we have F-16s, and F-15s and tanks and cannons and probably a full arsenal of other things I don't know about. But what drove us to get them is fear. And if they weren't being supplied by the US, our fear would have driven us to find them elsewhere. And most importantly: what drives us to operate them is fear.

There are other drivers, too, but when there is less fear: most of the Israeli population advocates restraint. When there is less fear, Israel becomes less aggressive.


@Blue, you also said:
> fear comes from the lack of justice.
> fear comes from the lack of self confidence.
> fear comes from a lost case.
> fear comes to real murderers at night when
> see the ghosts of the murdered childerns, wifes,
> old men and poor citizens with no justified reason but "Terror and fear".

I don't think we, as Israelis, lack self confidence. I think perhaps many Israelis have too much of it. And I think that this overconfidence is dangerous when it is combined with fear. As for justice and a lost case: that's something I would like to return to in another post.

I ask you to understand that Israelis are not murderers any more than you are. Both sides have killed, and are still killing. The numbers do not matter. There are too many dead children, wives, old men and poor citizens on both sides.

Blue, the fear in Israel right now is coming from thousands of rockets being fired at us, coupled with promises to "wipe us off the map" and "drown us in the sea", along with suicide bombers trying to kill our children. And don't underestimate the power of the "wipe us off the map" promise. Bombs falling with this sort of promise are very frightening. I know there is great fear on the Lebanese side too. I just wanted you to know that we also feel this.



@Mohamed: you said you are happy that Hizballa make us feel fear. Please try to understand: Hizballa is not doing anything new. We have been feeling fear for decades. We also feared the Arab armies in 1973. This is the point I was trying to emphasize: making us fear is not going to solve anything. It is achieving the opposite. Hizballa are simply perpetuating the cycle of violence. Israel is still bombing Lebanon because we are afraid of what will happen if we stop.



@Blue, you also asked why I didn't say that I am happy when Palestinians or Lebanese are killed. The reason is that I am not happy when they are killed. Most Israelis are not. And when Israeli extremists murder innocent Palestinians, I, along with millions of other Israelis, am happy to see these murderers put in jail.

I do not deny that there are a lot of Israelis who do not feel like I do. A very large group of Israelis is trapped in their hate and in their fear and their righteousness. This group spawned Yigal Amir - who murdered our majority-elected Prime Minister, because our Prime Minister returned land to the Palestinians.



If there is ever going to be a way out of this cycle of violence: it is up to people like me and people like you - people who respect the value of human lives - regardless of whether we are Israeli or Arab - to work together and find a way to restrain our extremists, and hopefuly find a way out of this terrible situation.



Again, thank you all - I will post again in a few days.

-I.B.