How do you like the view? This is the view you'll have once America, Iran, Israel, and Syria are through with us all, if you have a view at all.
"I'm tired of being held hostage by this situation." This statement has won me universal scorn from friends on either "side" who claim to care about such things, although as they crank up the rhetoric and turn any opposing view to white noise, it's clear that what they really care about is showing how smart they are.
Still, I am lucky. The only effects this latest segment of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East have been a tattering of my international social life and the death of the son of one of my favourite authors, David Grossman, one of the few Israelis to keep his leftwing views through two Intifadas and (now) two wars in Lebanon. I still have my house, my family, my friends, and my way of life is unchanged - although my life has been touched. No one I know has died.
And people have died. Hundreds of people. What is absent from the outrage of the majority of the tirades of the armchair, remote control pundits of all points of view is an absence of concern over the death of civilians - civilians - on "the other side". If it's a question of human rights, it shouldn't matter what side of a particular border you live on to find sympathy from the outside world for the death of your loved ones.
Instead, the diatribes revolve around which world leader said what; which journalist interviewed whom, demonstrating a clear editorial bias (to the pundit, lack of media bias means agreeing 100% with the views the pundit espouses); who doctored photographs of what; which side falsely claimed victory. Through this mess they pick through, scavenging for detail that will allow them into fresh bouts of apoplectic outrage that will demonstrate to all around how very, very right they have been all along. And in all this is lost the thousands of lives that have been torn to shreds.
A good friend, in fact, one of my best friends, a sweet, kid gentle soul whose vociferous views have been shocking me recently. "Why can't you and the rest of your hollow, liberals see that this is a clash of civilizations?" asked the former peacenik. I agree. But he meant it as a clash between East meets West. But I see it differently. It is a clash between insecure middle-aged men with too much power, no ability to reason, and feelings of doubt over the size of their dicks who think each other have bigger dicks. What's more, it's a clash between people who will espouse any viewpoint that fits into the paradigm of how they see the world and with no desire to contemplate deviating from the notions spewed out by the poorly-endowed old men.
Are you arguing a point simply because of what some guy thinks of his dick?
