andrewducker | Waiting for the fallout

andrewducker

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From:

stephenbooth-uk.livejournal.com

Well, actually, I'm Stephen. But I'm also curious.

The Israelis should just pack up and leave

Where do you suggest that they packup and leave to? Any mass migration like that is going to displace other people who are going to get pissed off and a proportion of them are likely to express their anger with batons, petrol bombs, guns and explosives. Also, a lot (most even) of Israelis were born there and so you would be displacing them from their homeland.

I think that it is a very small number of people on each side who are causing the problems. However those few people scare the majority of the other side and frightened people are usually suspicious of anyone and anything that looks like who/what is scaring them. Those on their own side play on that fear to turn it into hatred. For example, suicide bombers, as have been proven by recent events in Turkey, are very difficult to spot until they blow themselves up. By which time it is too late. How is the ordinary Israeli to tell the difference between a suicide bomber and a Palestinian, they both look the same. It's not like they wear badges which say "I am a suicide bomber and am going to kill you" or "I am an ordinary Palestinian who is just trying to make a living."!

You see what I'm getting at?

From:

yonmei.livejournal.com

My comment Exactly. The Israelis should just pack up and leave: the amount of fuss they make over being expected to share is unreasonable given the amount of land involved. was a sarcastic rejoinder to Andrew's comment It says that the amount of fuss being made over Israel is out of proportion to the amount of land it takes up.

My comment was sarcasm: it was not a serious suggestion that the Israelis should pack up and leave.

From:

stephenbooth-uk.livejournal.com

Oh well. It didn't come over as sarcastic to me. Possibly because I do know some people who seriously believe that the Israelis should leave Israel and 'give it back' to the Palestinians. A lot of them haven't quite thought it through.

From:

yonmei.livejournal.com

Oh well. It didn't come over as sarcastic to me

Sarcasm and irony are two "tones" that come across very badly in online communication. I realise it would be better to avoid using them entirely, or to use only with some signal (< Fe > is in use on a mailing list I belong to) to indicate irony/sarcasm.

Possibly because I do know some people who seriously believe that the Israelis should leave Israel and 'give it back' to the Palestinians. A lot of them haven't quite thought it through.

Sure. As there are people who seriously believe that the conflict in Israel/Palestine is all the fault of the Palestinians, who should just have politely accepted their exile. The picture Andrew used to start this thread is indicative of that way of thinking: that the Palestinians are making a terrible fuss about nothing, look at all the "Arab" countries that still exist.