I am an American Jew. I've never been to Israel, but was raised to believe it was the God's promised land, where all Jews would be free from persecution. I was raised to love this far-away country as my own, to hold it blameless when it stumbled, to defend it to my death.
I grew up, however, having a slightly more complicated view of Israel. I saw how Arab Isreali's did not have the same opportunities as Jewish Israeli's, or even new European immigrants. I saw how Palestinians lived in abject poverty. I saw Zionist extremists - a pretty small, but extremely vocal community - descend on territories in the West Bank, displacing Palestinian families, cutting down their olive orchards, in the name of "reclaiming God's land" for the Jews. I saw how the right-wind political factions in Israel exploited the real fear and terror regular Israeli citizens felt at targeted by suicide bombers in their shops and cafes to keep themselves in power, while at the same time seeking no real solutions to this ancient problem.
I saw the inequity in this and decided not to hold Israel blameless. I'm know I'm not the only American Jew who feels this way.
However, when I read Daisy Cutter's diary, this was my immediate and gut reaction.
"Fuck you."
If the diarist's intention was to provoke, divide, piss-off and start a shit storm, she (I'm assuming it's a 'she') did a fantastic job. I can't imagine how she thought it would do otherwise.
But there's a lot of us out here who would like to see a real resolution to this problem. We'd like to see the settlers out of the West Bank and the gates imprisoning Gaza ripped down. But we'd also like to see the right of Israel to exist acknowledged by Hamas, other Arab countries in the region take responsibility for their part of the Palestinian problem, and the suicide bombings stop.
All these things need to happen, and more. Equating the Palestinians to blameless children, and the Israelis to Zionist Nazi doesn't bring us one step closer to a solution, and alienates a lot of reasonable pro-Israeli folks like me who are looking for honest dialogue.
UPDATE
I should clarify why I wrote "fuck you". I did not mean I was saying "fuck you" to the diarist. I meant that's how the diarist made me feel. My fault for not clarifying the point I was trying to make. Which was, despite the fact we may agree on many of the issues related to this conflict, the diary was so insulting to me, so obviously meant to provoke, that it had the effect of pushing me away, rather than engaging me in conversation.
UPDATE x2
I'm truly fascinated by the multiple comments calling for this diary to be deleted.