Justin Mason

A member of the Philip Greenspun's Homepage community since April 25, 2003

If you were to log in, you'd be able to get more information on your fellow community member.

April 25, 2003, on Israel:
Phil -- I think you've missed the whole cycle of revenge. I'm Irish, so I've seen it up close, in Northern Ireland -- and I hope I'm seeing the end of it, too, these days. Here's how it works. As one comment said above, it starts with settlement; your family lives in a place for generations, maybe they have a nice house or farm, then some "outsiders" are settled on that land and you're told to leave. You resent this, for obvious reasons, and vow to fight back to regain what was yours. You fight back, they fight back, it escalates, it goes on for years, escalating and calming down periodically in response to external events. This is what happened in South Africa and NI. Eventually, assuming it's got to the stage it's at in Israel/Palestine, you're at a stage where one side is saying "ethnic group A committed Atrocity A. Never forget!" and the other is saying "ethnic group B committed Atrocity B. Never forget!". There's no cross-community dialogue. In addition,...