Reply #18: this one is for me...the unanswered questions....

[pelsar]

It can take a great deal more work to answer a question well than it does to pose it
so?...it takes a lot more time to address: false claims of genocide, ethnic cleansing, nonviolent protests, "need westbank/lebanon to steal water" than it does to make the statement.

and yes i think a detailed explaination/links are "owed" when such statements are made......it should be the "culture here."

and sometimes as in real life such questions lead to other questions that do "veer" off the main topic....thats quite natural. At that point it seems to me the posters have the choice of continuing or not, simply with a "I'm not interested in continuing"

some questions are loaded
that is because many of the situations are "loaded".....thats what happens in real life out here. Both the palestinians and us know a certain set of events follow one another, like clock work and we all know what each side is going to do....Here at the I/P israel then gets criticized for those actions. My bringing them up is no more "loaded' than what happens in real life. Understandably its creates moral value decisions that are not comfortable but that is precisly why i bring them up....and dont get answered (though there has been a few that have answered some)

i've noticed that usually i get one or two questions before it ends...the reasons are varied: already answered, etc....but i see it differently....it takes a few questions and answers before one gets to the real moral decision that are being made in the field: morality vs intl law or applying real definitions. Unfortunatly few(none) really want to go there. If it were one or two posters i would take them as the exception, however it appears to be far more wide spread than that. Again in a real life conversation few discussions are only allowed "two questions".

Since many here have not been out there in the environment, it seems to me those who are really interested in understanding at least one of the sides, attempting to answer questions that some of us actually face, would be of interest.