[jennofay]

from reading this afternoon, i have discovered some major flaws in this whole discussion.

1) too many people have already formed strong opinions, and are looking for "proof" to back them up. a quote here or a statistic there doesnt strengthen an argument based in opinion and emotion. too many of you are positive that you are right, that the situation is cut and dry, and that any one who disagrees with you is a total idiot, because of "this article"...unfortunately, a "debate," lets call it, where there are many sides and many opinons, can not be handled that way. if you used "yea, well youre a poopy-head, so there" as your argument, no one would take you seriously. focus of hard facts.

2) too many of you are using single isolated incidents to back up your entire argument. this goes along with my first point. just because something happened does not make it the norm for an entire society. this is why people in other countries see americans as lazy, americans often classify the french as rude, etc. you simply can not stereotype an entire group of people based on a few events. this is about as stupid as my showing a photo of our cat, shadow to someone to "prove" to them that all cats are black. you have to look at the whole picture, especially with something as complex as this.

3) i have seen a few people using sources over and over again to back up their argument. some of these sources, i believe, and you may too, are biased in themselves. obviously no one is so stupid as to use "www.thepalestinianextremistsareright.com" to back their support of this particular group of people, but you cant base your entire argument based on ONE persons opinion or ONE website, especially not a well known and reputable one. this is why our teachers forced us to use "three or more sources" in our research papers. you simply can not form a well rounded opinion of a situation when you have only read one viewpoint.

4) people are *looking* for a fight. damn, people. if i remember correctly, this whole thread began with a photo of a little girl who was being trained to hate. to not learn to understand other people, but to celebrate the lack of understanding and compassion around her. we are no better if we can not learn to sit down and *calmly* read a discussion and say to ourselves, "you know, i might not agree with what this person is saying, but thats their opinion and i respect that." instead, we look for any phrase which we can tear apart and throw back in their face. this is not intelligent discussion. stop using emotion as your argument.

note i did not name names, i know that i am going to have this replied to with at least one defensive post whining at me about how i dont understand, and they are not doing this, and that i am a moron. dont bother. i dont care. if you dont fit into the above categories, great. if you do, dont get defensive and try to start a fight, i wont reply and youll be wasting your time. just think about what i said and try to understand where this is coming from. if you cant sit down and have a mature, intelligent conversation, dont bother.

this being said, i am certainly no expert on the situation in the middle east. i actually know very little. what i do know, however, is that any government/orginization/whatever, that is encouraging the teaching of hatred to children is despicable. there is NO excuse for it. i dont know about any other countries, but if this was going on in the united states, an end would be put to it immediately. this leads me to believe that the leadership in these countries needs to be changed. if the leaders are not strong enough to look at their people and say to them "this is wrong," then they should be replaced with someone who is able to face up to the challenge. putting personal feelings aside for the good of the people. no matter whose feelings have been hurt in the past, or who went to which holy site, or whatever. that doesnt matter. that is the past. obviously something needs to change. since i am not educateed at all on this subject, i wont say that this leader or that leader needs to go, but there is a definate problem in the way that an entire society is running if children are being lead in praises of murderers.