Bleat Boy does a Semi-Screed
It's pretty long, so of course is so full of quotability that it's hard to steal without stealing all of it, but here is a portion:

Nowadays I am admonished to look at things from the Arab perspective. Well, I do. I read their papers as much as I can, as well nuggets gleaned from the MEMRI site. I see a legitimate cause long lost to a collective spasm of romantic insanity. I see a pathological hatred of the Jews that seems both delusional and self-destructive. The problems of the Arab states are the fault of the Arab states, but this cannot be discussed, so all anger must be directed at the Jews. It’s interesting to note after the 50s, the American culture never objectified and demonized Russians - on the contrary, we indulged ourselves with notions of the curmudgeonly Bear who, in the end, could be brought around with some good clear likker. If there is one remarkable and unnoticed aspect of the Cold War, it is the way in which the Americans eventually wanted to love the Russian people. Screw the Kremlin, fine, but we had no beef with Rooskie workin’ stiffs. You got your system, we got ours, but hell, it ain’t worth blowing up the planet over.

Now I realize that since I live in Alabama, and I am not the smartest person in the state, and I should not worry so much about stuff that I have no direct contact with, and I am incapable of forming rational conclusions unless they are spoon-fed to me by others, and my political beliefs are nothing more that parroting what others say, and I'm just an old dinosaur, that I should just go my little old way and let my betters discuss this situation.

But you know what? Believe it or not, even us po' dumb ignorant rednecks throwbacks realize that the conflict in the Middle East does have a direct impact on us, and although it may not suit some folks to say it, there is a brutally barbaric aspect to it that demands action be taken. Yes, there are two sides to every story. That does not mean that both sides have equal validity.

This morning, just as we were about to go out the door for school, I was signing the kids' daily folders. My oldest daughter scrambled and got hers out of her bookbag and brought it to me. She hovered right by my side ready to grab it back. "Is there anything in your bookbag you don't want me to see?" "No." "All your work's done?" Yes. "All your notebooks are done?" Yes. Still hovering. So I picked up her backpack and started going through it. Then I found an old science test that she took during the previous nine week period. She had gottem a zero on it.

Now, when she got a grade alert last time, we saw that grade on her report and asked her how she could get a zero. Shoulder shrug. She got a dose of privilege deprivation and several stern lectures then. But now, I had the actual test in front of me. Across the top, in red pen "0/20 -- Cheating. Let Stephanie copy paper."

"What's this!?" "I WASN'T CHEATING! SHE GOT IT FROM ME AND I COULDN'T GET IT BACK!" "Did you tell your teacher?" "SHE WOULDN'T BELIEVE ME!!" "Well, she was the one who saw what was going on. If she says you cheated, you cheated."

Which prompted a tearful, screaming, run to the bathroom. I know what she was thinking. I was twelve once, too. "Why won't anyone believe me!" But I also know, having caught her in other lies in the past, and knowing my own adolescent inability to accept responsibility for my own actions, and knowing this particular teacher, that she was indeed cheating. In her mind, though, she was the victim. It was that teacher. It was Stephanie. It was everyone else except her. One day, maybe she will figure out that stealing and lieing do not engender trust in those around you. Nor does ever more loudly proclaiming your innocence mitigate the evidence to the contrary.

There will never be anything passing for a stable peace in the Middle East until there is some realization from one side in particular that it indeed does have the capability to be wrong, that it must share at least some blame in its own very real troubles.

It’s as if they believe that the very act of hating the Jews ennobles them. All other human aspirations are secondary, and therefore their failure to achieve these aspirations is of no consequence.

I’m sure millions and millions of Arab Muslims do not believe this. Millions and millions do, of course, and they’ve seized the debate and strangled an entire culture’s ability to find compromise. Show me the nuance on the PLO side. Show me the West Bank leader who A) wants coexistence with Israel, B) rejects civilian murder, C) presents himself as a hopeful alternative to Arafat, and D) is not swinging from a lamppost.

[...] I have avoided writing about the War and the Middle East, because it just became too hideously depressing last week. There was the murder of the five-year old girl by Palestinian operatives. Shot to death in her bed. Shot to death in her Mickey Mouse sheets. Shot to death by a man who could look a child in the face and rejoice in her shattered skull. I know there are some people who believe that Israeli soldiers intentionally kill children, and that killing five-year olds is Israeli state policy. Believe what you want. Just find me the Israeli paper that celebrates this action. Find me the wall poster that salutes this brave soldier. Sing me the song that glorifies this murder as an active of devotion to G-d. Then tell me this:

Who is the greater threat to this child pictured below? It’s either the nation that withdrew from the Sinai, withdrew from Lebanon, admits Islamic Movement politicians to its deliberative body and would gladly make peace with any nation not sworn to destroy it - or it’s the culture that hangs the grenade around the necks of its children.

You decide. Let us pretend, for the sake of argument, that it’s actually a case of black and white.
posted by Terry at 9:22:00 AM