In an ideal world, no country would have a leader that is directly responsible to killing civilians, or at least no leader that performed such actions personally.

Unfortunately the middle east is very far from such an ideal. This is demonstrated by virtually all of the leadership of the Palestinan side, and also by many Israeli leaders (Shamir and Begin were former terrorists, and of course many other leaders held high positions in the military).

Moderate people in both sides intuitively understand that and are happy when a leader, even if he is a former terrorist, decides to take the road of peace. Any improvement in that part of the world will come from the actions of such leaders, and not from sinless commenters and philosophers.

Quoting a certain debatable (and to many sensible) law and referring to unequal funds distribution sound like excuses to your striking accusations. Those of you who have visited Israel and apartheid-period- South-Africa saw no resemblance whatsoever in terms of racial discrimination.

And if you are quoting the law, you should at least give all the relevant part:

A candidates’ list shall not participate in elections to the Knesset if its objects or actions, expressly or by implication, include one of the following:
(1) negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of
the Jewish people;
(2) negation of the democratic character of the State;
(3) incitement to racism.

I’d say the third part more or less reverts your point of quoting this law.

In short, it wouldn’t hurt to soften your tones, not only to increase your chances of tenure, but more importantly (at least to some of us) to be a polite human.

-still offended israeli

Even so, it defies any sense of proportion to describe Sabra and Shatila as “genocide”. I’ll grant that it was a terrible war crime and that Ariel Sharon is plausibly a war criminal. But “genocide” ought to mean something else, because Arab countries have done worse than Sabra and Shatila, in many cases against other Arabs.

I have never been able to find a satisfactory definition of the words “genocide” and “terrorism.” The definitions preferred by governments are the following:

We don’t do terrorism. Only the bad guys do it. Similarly, we don’t do genocide. Only the bad guys do it.

I guess these are good enough definitions for most of the population who seem to have an IQ of a sheep when it comes to politics.

BTW, journeyman.tv is highly respected source of TV actuality material. There materials are widely used by broadcasters all over the world. However, their material cannot be found within the bubble (US). In fact, as a subscriber of the local NPR station, I once urged them to broadcast material from journeyman and they said they cannot because … ehh … becasue … ehh. I get it, they do not want to lose their carreers.

Anyway I couldn’t have expected much from my local NPR station anyway. Back in the late 90′s, in return for funding from a local creationist organization, they completely blacked out news of the Kansas State’s decision not to test evolution in school.

Enough of my off topic rambling.

Gi

Israel Basic Law: The Knesset section 7(a) Prevention of Participation of Candidates List
(1) negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of
the Jewish people;
link
Those opposing a state theocracy are banned from being elected officials.

However, I choose to use the adjective “apartied” due to another concern:

The disproportinal amount of state tax revenue given specificaly to “Jewish” communities.

Communities that are not “Jewish” enough get less funds for education and healthcare.

The U.S. is by no means a saint in this area. It mostly relies on a local property tax for education which gives rich communites far more money to spend on their schools.

Also:
anonymous: Gluten doesn’t cause stroke. Gluttony maybe, but not gluten.

Sorry, Freudian slip. I probably had this article on my mind.

-untenured and hence anonymous

Accusing Israel with internal apartheid is damn harsh, with a hateful hint. If at all, you should be making such harsh accusations based on and accompanied by serious studies and facts.

-offended Israeli

(not applied to the unfortunate situation in the West Bank, hopefully to be free soon)

I see that the http://www.journeyman.tv site resorts to the word “genocide” in describing Sabra and Shatila. In light of what is going on in Darfur right now, that is irresponsible hyperbole.