Oh, ok, so what you're saying is that the suicide bombers' death cry being "Allah hu akbar", the crowd chants of "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!", and the declarations of intent to wipe out the infidels... none of that has ANYthing to do with their religion?? Dude, pardon me, but wake the hell up.
No, not all Muslims are terrorist. Not all Arabs are terrorists. And not all terrorists are Muslims. Or Arabs. But the facts speak for themselves, if you (this is a general "you", not specifically singling you out, Aldo) would be willing to listen.
Do we say Christians are bound to be evil torturers because of the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition? Or because Hitler believed God was behind him? Or we just regard them as a group of nutcases seeking devine justification for committing evil acts, and a promise of heaven so as to recruit? Are you sure it's not just easier to blame Islam than to introspect on the mistakes made?
I also wonder; these people are the dominant ethnic group of that area - would you oppose the concept of them having self-determination? And another thing I wondered - why is it even important to keep these areas? Especially when they will - seemingly - always remain hostile.
Pardon me for being so presumptous, but I do believe that of all the people on HLP, I am the only one who experienced at least some (not all, obviously) of the interaction between the IDF and the Palestinians. So unless you're so naive as to think that you actually can get a better picture of the situation through 30 seconds of footage from the directed and focussed lens of a news team's camera than I saw in 3+ years of actually being there, I'll kindly ask you to take my word on the accuracy of the perception portrayed in that cartoon. If you don't like it, you're perfectly free to hop on a plane and observe things for yourself.
The accuracy of the perception as portrayed in that children's cartoon is about %5. Yes, there have been Palestinian children killed. The circumstances of those deaths, however, are never what you are led to believe by the Western media.
Please don't start this 'blame the Western media' stuff. That's exactly what I was pointing out previously about how easy it is to assume your viewpoint is the only or correct one because it's close to your heart. Tell me, when you were with the IDF, how often would you talk to Palestinians? And when you did, were you armed? Were you in an IDF (military) uniform or accompanied with other troops? Do you know any Palestinians who have had family members killed by the IDF, either intentionally or by accident? Do you know anyone from a refugee camp who has had their home bulldozed?
Now, I am not condoning any sort of praise or encouragement for suicide bombing. That's wrong; any killing, any act of violence committed for revenge is, regardless of the cause or justification, and I believe I've made that very clear in several occasions. What I am saying is, if you strip out their propagandistic endorsement of one side, and instead add in the diamtrically opposed counterpoint, you have a better picture of what the motivations are, why people are hating others.
I don't expect you to be able to see their side; people are blowing themselves up and murdering in the name of these people, attacking your country, why would you even want to? But if you want to ever
stop this, you have to understand what drives not just the nutcases with a bomb-belt, but the more rational people who still tacitly or silently support it.
EDIT; in any case, I remember Gank having had family visit there to make a documentary, and he was a
lot harsher in his opinion of Israel than I am or would be. I note that a lot of the 'western media' you are so fond of criticising tend to have people on both sides of the fence, as it were (actually, I think that phrase can be literal now); I'd also note that they have no reason to be biased - or are you implying they're pandering to some hidden vast majority of Palestinian immigrants into the predominantly Christian + white Western world?