I feel that I need to voice my opinioninion. I'm very sickened by what is happening in Israel and particularly by the way that media describes it.

I'm not quite sure whether Palestinian people do have a claim to Israeli land or not, and that's not the point. The point is, that like in any conflict there are mo re then one side and more then one opinion. For years, palestinians have harrased Israeli population. Remember the bombs in Tel-aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem (kids were murdered too jansonm). Israel is very small.About 5 million poeple total. Yet I'm sure a huge percentage of people must serve in the army. Small landwise too. I once travelled through it's widest point in about 7 hours. Look at the damn map. Find Israel. Chances are the word "Israel" will be bigger the then actu al land.

I try not to follow world events. As far as I know the latest (few months ago) outbreak of violence was caused by one of the Israeli officials walking up some holly Ar ab mountain. From what I've read that particular place is only mentioned in Koran once and very vaguely too. So why go crazy about it? Is it simply an excuse for mor e violence?

Another thing is Israel's portrayal in the news. Lately whenever I hear "Israel" and "Palestine" mentioned in one sentence is seems like there's a picture of an Israeli soldier with an M-16 and poor defenseless mob of palestinians. I mean come on people! Be at least a bit objective! For years palestinians have been t errorizing Israel with their suicide attacks. I remember I forgot a backpack at school once and a damn bombsquad was almost called on my ass. I live in Canada now, but I'm still warry and avoid unknown objects on the ground. I've seen bags being shot by the robot to check for explosives. I lived in Rehovot, that's about 20km from Tel-aviv where people died. My uncle has been wounded numerous times in Gaza for god's sake! What's the deal with portraying Palestinians as poor helpless people? T hey have their share of evil in this. And recently I heard that Bush (or someone from the office) reprimanded Israel for their actions. Reprimanded! What the hell! How the hell do you reprimand a country! And this, after every efort of Barak to appease palestinians? Why?
This rant was in response to jasonm's write up above. This is in no way a personal attack.