Reply #16: Your point is well taken

[rpannier]

I was reading the comments in an article on HuffPo and one poster put this up
"When Muslims lay down their arms there will be peace in the Middle East. When Israel lays down their arms, Israel will cease to exist."

To which someone posted, "I see nothing wrong with either of those."

There is a tremendous amount of hostility towards Israel, some of which I understand and at times I agree with. Other times it just baffles me what their point is, or how they arrived at the conclusion they did. I'm not always sure that the hostility is anti-Semitic, as Arabs are semites too. I think a lot of it stems from one of two places;

1) Israeli politicians are supposedly "buddy-buddy" with scrubbie. And scrubbie and co. are doing AIPAC's bidding;

and/or

2) Americans, especially those on the left, sympathise with the underdog. Israel has more arms, they get money and equipment from the US, etc. Arabs and Arab states are often bashed on TV, either directly or indirectly and this raises the ire of many.
on note: I am in this group.

The problem here is that Hizbollah, Hamas, etc think nothing of walking into a crowded restaurant and blowing up civilians. They fire rockets at Israeli schools, synogagues, etc, then rush into a crowded area hoping that Israel will not attack. If Israel does, Hizbollah and their apologists are immediately outraged.

On a personal note: Israel is wrong for attacking civilian areas in paces like Beirut and for bombing the Lebanese military base in the first few days of the engagement. There is no excuse for this. But, Hizbollah are hardly the victims here. Lebanese and Israeli civilians are the victims.