I liked this article and I agree wholeheartedly. It feels hopeless.
I was once in a bar with a good friend of mine in LA, about 4 years ago. We had both just recently returned from a trip to Israel.
The lady next to us in the bar started chatting with us, and said that she was a Nazi. She hated Jews and blamed us for all her problems. She told us that she was there for recruiting! At which point, we told her she was doing a piss-poor job of it because she was talking to 2 Jews!
As the conversation went on it became apparent she had no clue of what she was talking about and was just brainwashed into believing whatever she believes about Jews.
My friend wanted to smash a glass in her face, and I stopped him. I said, if you do that, it will only strengthen all of her false beliefs about Jews and make her hate us even more.
The problem is, I didn’t (and still don’t) really have an alternate solution.... maybe I shouldn’t have stopped my friend?
No matter how truthful you are, no matter how nice you might treat those who hate Jews (and Israel), it has become painfully clear that in the end, no one cares.
They will still sell the propaganda (fake victims for CNN to tape, for example) that the world will keep on buying.
Diplomacy and “being truthful” or, being “the better person” or “more mature” or “don’t stoop to their level” does not work against people who employ dirty tactics to get their point accross.
Yet I still don’t have a solution. Should Israeli army use ambulances too, and dress like nurses and take out militants in Gaza while saying they were there to help people? The thought is ridiculous, yet that is exactly what the enemy does, and it works for them.
This type of article always brings my back to Golda Meir’s famous quote, (paraphrased) that there will be peace when the Palestinians learn to love their children more than they hate the Jews.
Yet I still don’t have a solution. To hell with the world opinion. Israel is doing the right things. She is protecting her people.