All wars are brutal, ugly and inhumane. And it seems to me that that ugliness has impacted DU.

[housecat]

82. Correct me if I am wrong, but DUers can't possibly fully understand a surprise attack that has been

simmering for decades. We are relying on soundbites and theories of everyone from Israeli soldiers to Palestinian families, from Middle East scholars to Middle East political figures. Who is to blame? Who has injured whom? It can't possibly be covered in a post, especially when emotion cannot be separated from fact, and facts cannot be separated from fiction.

We set out to discuss and make sense of an impossible situation, and we fail. We are a collection of anonymous DUers speaking to other anonymous DUers, plus some who have just crashed the party. Opinions are valuable, but swipes at each other have no value at all. I hope the pot stirrers can stop stirring long enough to listen and try not to allow a volatile subject turn any of us against each other. We have more in common than we know, and yet today we focus on differences. How can we expect many abused, persecuted, and proud people from different cultures to behave with civility, when a group of (primarily) educated Americans with very similar politics has some of its members shouting at each other when they write.