An interview with a Suicide Bomber

[DanaC]

"The truth is that the Pals are led to believe that through their actions they can actually defeat Israel, which is why they persist and why other peoples, such as (look, more examples, Dana) the Tibetans with China, the Kurds with Hussein, etc. do not turn to suicide bombing of innocent people."

Interesting that you draw on both Tibet and the Kurds as examples of peoples who face a similar situation to that of the Palestinians. I am heartened that you see the equivalences in both of those. Both are examples of horrendously repressive regimes who have asserted their will violently against another people and refused to grant them even the most basic of freedoms and rights.

You also point out that the Jews did not resort to suicide bombing during the Holocaust. Is it then your assertion that when faced with potential or actual genocide a people should maintain only a peaceful resistance? If the history books had within them descriptions of Jewsih suicide bombers blowing up a cafe in Berlin in protest for Auschwitz would you seriously condemn them?
The Victims of the holocaust did not have time to plan and equip a violent resistance. They had been removed from positions which would have allowed the procurement of weaponry long before the Final Solution had been decided upon. Who knows what they may have decided to do to fight their oppressor had the Germans chosen to oppress them much over a long time rather than annihilate them in the fastest possible way.

When WW2 was fought and the world rallied to one side or the other the Allies very much did target civlians. There is no way to firebomb an entire city and not kill civilians. At that time the nations involved believed that total war was the answer. What the Palestinians are doing pales in comparison to what we did to various ares of Germany, not to mention Japan. The only reason it seems so much worse in the Middle East is because the people conducting the war are not an organised state army.......at least not on the Palestinian's side.......Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. Interestingly most Americans percieve Chinese activities in Tibet as an appalling act of oppression against a weaker people. Likewise the Hussein regime's maltreatment of the Kurds. Even if the Kurds had resorted to blowing up buses in Basra it wold not change the basic facts of their oppression. It merely adds another innocent life to the tally and leaves another mother weeping.