deanquill's comments

"Absurd" really is the best description -- and a better one than "fascist." The current loyalty oath requires non-Jewish immigrants to state that they will be loyal to the State of Israel. In effect, those who don't like the state are asked to lie in return for the benefits of citizenship. But the state does exist whether they like it or not.

Whether the state is "Jewish and democratic" though is debatable. A Palestinian might argue that the two are contradictory. Under the new law then, they'll be declaring their loyalty to a state that they believe cannot exist. That really is absurd.

I'm not sure that calling Trident a "nuclear deterrent" is an absorption of the government's mindset so much as wishful thinking. Calling other country's arsenals "nuclear weapons" might be a display of fear about their thinking.

This one of the defining characteristics of Judaism. While fundamentalists state the word of God is the law, Jews have noted that the meaning of those words is up for discussion. The result is that a gap between a signified and its signifier can be wide enough to hold a world of different lifestyles. Unfortunately the gap between fundamentalists' ears can be no less wide.

That's a lot of dodgy opinions disguised as facts. At Entebbe, it wasn't just Bibi's brother who died. Forty-five Ugandan soldiers were killed as were all the hijackers and, more importantly, three of the hostages. The army was no more -- or less -- careful then than they are now.

I suppose it's possible that the poor choice of equipment given to the troops shows a low sensitivity to protestor casualties but the opposite is more likely to be true. Rubber bullets have proven to be fatal when fired at close range; paintball guns just sting. The troops were given the least lethal form of riot control because planners expected the "peace activists" to act peacefully -- as they did on five of the six ships -- and didn't want unnecessary deaths. When the marines dropped one by one into a lynch mob and found that the activists weren't too interested in peace, the only weapons left were pistols. It was the lack of an appropriate option between paintballs and live ammunition that caused the deaths.

Attention here in Israel is focusing on the cock-up in intelligence and planning, not on a supposed lack of sensitivity.

And the idea that the Palestinians haven't tried non-violence is wrong too. Individual demonstrations may be non-violent, but the Palestinian campaign as a whole has never been entirely peaceful. As long as there is some violence from the Palestinians, there will always be a forceful response and the conflict will be harder to end.

It works the other way too. Those of us who believe in a two-state solution also don't want to be told by Jews in the diaspora that the Palestinians will never make peace and that we should keep building.

Mostly though, when we're abroad, we just want to talk about something else. Anything else.

"We're not anti-Semites; we're racists" might be a good explanation but it's not much of a defence. And it doesn't explain everything. It doesn't explain, for example, why the assassination of a Hamas terrorist in Dubai brings headlines but a US drone attack that also kills civilians is ignored, nor why only our secret agents are expected to travel under their own passports. Our cries of anti-Semitism don't come from being held to a higher standard than Sudan's dictator. It comes from being held to a higher standard than the US and Europe as well.

Dear Blogger,

One might have looked at all of the things you mentioned here and come to the conclusion that Israel, like every other country, has the right to defend itself against its enemies anywhere; that al-Mabhouh's record and his attempts to lengthen it meant he earned his fate; that the strategic benefit outweighed the diplomatic risk; and that all that's left to wonder about is the use of someone else's passport. Maybe we're just a few steps ahead of you in the moral debate.

And people ask why I'm vegan...

Thanks for suggesting we’re all nuts but it’s a bit of a simplistic explanation, no? In practice, we do feel rage and an insane urge for revenge after a terrorist attack but while the politicians trundle out the cliché “we’ll respond in a time and place of our choosing,” we calm down. A week after an attack, we’re still sore but rational again.

All of the examples quoted in the article to support the idea that poor decisions are being made in a red rage can be seen to be perfectly sensible. The attack on Gaza after Gilad Shalit’s capture might have been fierce but the price of his return will be the release of hundreds of terrorists who may well cause even more death in the future. The price we exacted for his kidnapping, although perhaps higher than we’d have liked it to have been, may help to deter a repeat, and I’ve always felt that our ability to see soldiers not as bodies in uniform but as individuals with parents and families waiting for them is a sign of our humanity not our insanity.

Nor was the Gaza war a sudden, mad decision prompted by a single rocket attack but a move made after thousands of rockets and mortars had been delivered over several years and were slowly killing life in the south. Far from being counterproductive, the rate of fire has fallen dramatically following the conflict even if it hasn’t stopped completely.

There are times when I think I have to be mad to live here, but I don’t think that living here is making me mad.