Many thanks for all you do Nikki

When I said Iranians are different I meant how they are seen culturally, “we consider them too different” or “they seem different” might have been more accurate. Obviously everyone is different and we cannot generalize I was attempting to explain why we ally with Israel instead of Iran.. obviously in Afganistan the Mujadeen were considered allies against communism.. things change.

My point was there is no propaganda machine. News reaches us of Israel’s human rights violations. But Israel is not the bad guy any more than I am or you are they are just people like us. They think they are doing the right thing, they honestly believe they are just defending themselves and they certainly don’t see the US as an ally. The isreali soldiers I met had been fighting in Lebanon.. and they seemed pretty messed up.. suffering from the war. I was trying to express my opposition to military force used in any situation but especially conscription. Because you can see in the article I posted what hapens when 18 year olds are given guns and told: “all our neighbouring countries are our enemies and want to kill us and our entire race.”

I want the fighting to stop.. I think negative images of Israelis are just as damaging as negative images of Palestinians. It perpetuates fighting which causes suffering on both sides. Any solution must be peacefull. Making Israel the bad guy justifies fighting, fring rockets or whatever.

Please don’t start with the Romans took it from them first etc.

The examples here are too numerous. You’ll mention Hamas in your next reply but more Israelis die from peanut allergies than from Hamas rockets. People know this now too.

No one is presuming that all Israeli’s agree with the actions of their govenrment.

Your comment about Iranian’s being ‘different’ is contradicting your later statement suggesting we regard and view each other as friends.

What’s good for the goose martin. There are two sides to every story indeed, depending on whose is telling it but the facts on the ground remain.

This conversation won’t matter anyway. People are wise now as to the state of affairs regarding the role of Israel in the region. Its not about her right to defend herself, when she is a military superpower with America backing her up. Its about the fact that she is expanding illegally. People know the facts now anyway. The effect of the propaganda is beginning to ebb. There are more Jews against zionism than at any other point in history. FREE FREE PALESTINE, DEATH TO THE EMPIRE.peace

Israel is seen by ‘the west’ as stable, ‘one of us’ so we overlook human rights violations. This thinking comes because we are culturally similar, while Arab states suffer from fear the different. We don’t understand how Iranian’s think, they are too different and therefore they must be a threat to us. But I don’t believe it’s because of propaganda.

But we mustn’t paint the Israelis as the bad guys either; they are just as much victims. I have met ex-Israeli Defence Force members, and people who fled their home to avoid conscription. The Defence Force is unique because its members are basically children, who finish scarred for life. The root cause of the problem, however, is the same with all armed forces an institutional belief that killing solves problems. An ‘Irani defence force’ would be no different.. or you or me for that matter. War and mistrust fuel themselves; the only way to stop a war is stop killing people.

It is too easy to create a big bad guy in your mind like in a comic book but the truth is that none of us are always right. In order to defeat your enemy whether it is Israel or Iran first we must understand them and then call them friends.