Israel (now broader Mid East discussion)
No matter how many times you say it, no. It's pragmatism.
There was a time when the area we now know as Iraq was the cradle of civilization, where arts and science flourished. Once Islam took over, it just died.
Jews have never rammed trucks full of explosives into crowds or schools without provocation or against a military target, kidnapped and murdered athletes in sporting events, killed cartoonists for drawing a cartoon, blown/highjacked civilian planes, flown planes into buildings, massacre other Jews for not being the same type of Jew (at least not in modern times), killed gay people for being gay (modern times), killed women for not properly wearing a piece of cloth on their hair, beaten up women for not obeying (modern times), deny women schooling after the age of 8, strapped explosives around the waists of women and children and command them to run into buildings, chanted death to America, used women and children as human shields... that's just on top of my head.
You're rationalizing Isreal killing civilians and demonizing the other side.
I am doing no such a thing. Like Sam Kinison said, I don't condone it, but I understand it.
Demonizing the other side? Well, let's just say I don't think kindly of cowards who shield themselves with women and children for their own sake. Plus all the things I listed above.
My point is clear and undeniable.
If you think so.
It doesn't need a long a rationalization. Killing civilians is wrong regardless of what side does it. NEITHER side has a just reason for doing so. You're just picking one.
I never said killing civilians is not wrong or righteous. But like it or not, civilians die in wars (especially if they are used as human shields for propaganda photo-ops by the coward terrorist religious zealots), and in this particular conflict, I think the world is a better place with Jews than radical Muslims.
As you acknowledge, this is a longstanding feud that you don't even fully understand.
I do understand the conflict.
Both sides have been performing atrocities against each other for ages. It doesn't justify the continued massacre of civilians by either side. That's it, or should be, but you're going to rationalize killing innocent people because these civilians are less worthy than these civilians.
I am not justifying anything. And again, I am not rationalizing civilian deaths; as I said, in a war, like it or not, civilians are going to die, and in this particular war, I think that one side is better than the other for human civilization; at least as of these times.