Politics...

I really dislike politics most of the time.
Everyone is so dishonest. They twist their words and most people tend to be too lazy to find out what is really happening, base all of their decisions PURELY on whichever TV ad catches their attention, and what their family and friends tend to do. I reiterate. *MOST* people. (b/c people are stupid) The people who tend to read my blog are not. :)

And I will admit - I'm lazy when it comes to politics. I tend not to pay much attention because it annoys me so much. And My mother is such a junky :) as is my brother and they think like I do, that i trust their judgement. So call me a hypocrite.

Today, I was reading on Kvatch's blog, along with a couple of others he referenced, their story with pictures about Israeli children signing bombs headed for Lebanon.

I have a number of issues with this story. And even more issues with a lot of the comments that came out of the story.

I can agree that it's sickening and sad that children are smiling and signing bombs with comments such as "from israel and daniel" or "to Hisballah with love" etc. But this is *SOOO* not a black and white issue. And what i absolutely *CAN NOT* agree with is the commentary that Muslims are raised to hate jews and jews are raised to hate Muslims. that is A) a GROSS generalization, b/c I have friends who are muslim. I am jewish. Neither of us hate each other, nor were we raised to do so. B) jews by nature are not raised to hate anyone (more to wallow in what is our own misfortune. :) ) B) So *NOT* the point of what is going on with Israel and Lebanon and Gaza and everything else.

I think we are all so hung up on the religious fanatics in the middle east bombing everyone that we can't separate any other conflict in the ME as anything BUT religious. Israel's war is a war of survival not of religion. They are a secular country not a religious one. (and please take note, I am *NOT* trying to say that israel is pure as the driven snow, and isn't to blame for some of the conflict. no one over there is without blame. no stone throwing there... at least not legitimately.) How many people have really STUDIED the history of that area? How many know all the things that have instigated this war? how many people have *REALLY* looked at a scale map of the Middle East after commenting on how Israel is trying to strong arm everyone, and then gone "oh sh*t, didn't realize how small Israel really is compared to the rest of the middle east!" Go here to see a map.

When Israel was created, no one WANTED that land. It was barren desert, that's why they said ok to giving it to israel. (yes this is probably an oversimplification, and if anyone can cite sources that prove i'm wrong, please lets start a civilized discussion of it) But then... Then Israel did the unexpected. They built a thriving country. They built irrigation systems and became a real agricultural mecca. Suddenly everyone wants their land back. what's wrong with this picture?

As for children signing bombs, think about it differently. What if we had a war on our home turf, our citizens, children, familes being killed by bombs? OR what if we had a way to send a bomb that would directly target Osama? Would we still think it sick and disgusting to have people signing bombs headed for our deadly enemy? It's very easy to be idealistic when we don't live with war every day.

last but not least, I have not yet been able to find any reference to this on any of the news outlets. Are these pictures even real? Where did they come from? And WHY of all things, are the children writing in english???? That's not their language. They aren't writing in lebanese, which would make sense since they are the recipients (though i don't think they'd be able to read it). Why, when sending bombs from your homeland, would you sign it anything BUT your national language? This screams propaganda to me, to get people fired up against Israel, so that they can then be attacked not just physically with bombs and bullets, but also be morally condemned by people sitting back in relative safety.

I again ask, what is wrong with this picture? You tell me.

**Update: the references are from here: Photo and short story However I believe that the location the girls are from, are LITERALLY on the border with Lebanon and has been bombed/shelled/attacked etc throughout history and are literally on the battlefront. Doesn't mean it justifies the behavior, but I certainly understand it.