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40 years in the desert and Moses led us to the only place without oil...

See the War Of The Noses thread for full details on this war.

It's at times like this that I can easily say that dancing in the streets has no idea what the hell is going on in the Jewish world, and is anti-Israel, and maybe a closet self-hating Jew. Use your internet access to look things up.

I'm just being extremely blunt.

Ahh the wonderful court of public opinion and the great stereopticon. Or what Weaver calls "a rising, emergent construct which serves to manipulate the beliefs and emotions of the populace, and ultimately to separate them from their humanity via 'the commodification of truth'."

In short if CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, The London Times, The BBC, NPR, UPI and every newspaper Rupert Murdoch owns implies that Israel MAY be in the wrong...

...then Israel is in the wrong if enough people believe it to be.

It's normal for people to question such things. Just because you're Jewish does not mean you are blindly obedient to The Kenesset's view on foreign policy.

However just because you don't agree with Israel's stance on war, doesn't mean you're cheering for Palestine.

That's the thing, I don't try to take a side unless I have a reason to. I look at the whole picture and remain objective.

It helps that I'm a journalist.

However this lesson of "What's ours is ours," was laid out to me one day while I was in an Irish Pub. I was in South Boston and decided to go into one of the Irish Pubs that my friends always warned me about as I tend to run my mouth when History, Religion and Politics, and this place was known for bar fights in regards to such topics.

So I go in, and the first thing I see is a picture of the pope above a statue of the Virgin Mary. Undaunted I walk in and see that they carry Beamish Stout on tap. Which is made in Cork County Ireland.

I belly up to the bar and order a Beamish.

Mind you I'm a skinhead at this point in my life. I have my Brewskin patches all over the place, the anti-nazi patch, sharpie helmet patch, with punk bands from both sides of the Atlantic patched onto my arms.

Now this war a bar known for boot boys and since southie had a slight problem with orange skins throwing down with catholic bootboys, not to mention the slight power vacuum since the Irish Mafia was busted by the feds, they of course had to see if I was worthy of being in their presence.

So 3 boot boys come around me, heads shaved, rugby jerseys, tight cuffed jeans with steel toed boots. You know em when ya see em.

One sits next to me, and spoke in a very heavy Irish Brogue.

"So you're new here?" he said
"Yeah first time in." I say being all friendly. "Nice place, love the atmosphere."
"I have a question for ya, what's your opinion on all the troubles in Northern Ireland."
Now, what he was asking was, "Do you support the IRA?" Now being a Jew, I didn't want to get in the whole Protestant/Catholic thing, remembering the words of Tom Leheur... So I took the middle road.
"What the ******** do I care?" I said with a bit of frustration. "You're Irish, I'm Jewish, you're troubles are none of my business. I'm just here to get a drink."
He got a bit upset with me for saying that.
"You got some rather large bollocks for a Jew, to come in here and tell us ya don't care about our troubles."
"They're still your troubles." I said, without intimidation. "My support for Ireland stops at proprietor and the barman's tip jar."
at this point the boot boy slams both his hands on the bar top.
"Ya know Jew boy... ya spoil all my fun. Every time someone new comes into our little pub, one of us asks them what they think, and they usually talk about... Irish Pride or English Colonialism or The Pope in Rome God bless him. And we have fun with em. But you... you're no fun. You're smart enough to stay out of the troubles. You're no fun at all."
"Yeah" I say with a smile, "But I can drink."

We then bought each other drinks and discussed the up coming world cup.

Wow. That was really rude.

*to the rest of people here* Have I come across as anti-Israel? Or self-hating Jew?

I was asking BECAUSE everything I'd heard sounded very one sided and was figuring "Hey, some of the people on here actually LIVE there and could probably give me a more balanced opinion" and I listen to BBC because I live in America and American news SUCKS.

Zumbi, I think you are being uneccesarily combative. I'm not trying to offend, I'm trying to get a more balanced opinion. This IS a part of my "using internet access to look things up" Please, please, Chill Out.

Thank you.
I didn't know about that. It makes more sense now, but...

I dunno. Is it officially declared "Now you all pay" then? Is some care being taken to help those who don't like or support the militants?
edit: *I didn't see kingpin's post until after I'd said this, and I don't want to spam with responses, but I like the way she said that*

I will not say what Israel is doing is completely right, nor will I say that what Hamas is doing is right. I will say that it is not Israel's wish to have war. They removed all Jews from Gaza in 2005. Since then, Hamas has been attacking Israel with rockets on a daily basis. Hamas has also openly stated his wish for the destruction of the state of Israel, along with the Jewish people. The main reason there are currently a lot of civilian deaths on the Palestinian side is because of Hamas. He takes young children and teaches them how to kill, as well has using women and children as human shields. Sometimes he will take women and children, even by force, and put them in areas where the Israelis warned that they were going to attack, so that innocent civilians will die and it will look like the fault is on Israel. Meanwhile, Hamas continues to send an average of 30 rockets a day, alarms going off only 15 seconds before each hits for people to take cover.