I'm getting super fed up with Israel/Palestine posts here

[SpankMe]

123. I am the OP of this thread and I rest my case!

Just look at the 120 or so replies to my OP.

This wasn't even a post about Palestine/Israel, but a comment merely on how we discuss Palestine/Israel on DU - and it still deteriorated into a blizzard of name-calling, snarky, accusatory, indignant, "I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I" arguing. Some posts even smack of rage.

I thought my gripe was relatively benign, and I still got called out as either an idiot or as some sort of snowflake who refuses to use the obvious tools DU has to block out these posts.

I thought about using the key word blocking function. But that would result in blocking more informative posts on the subject that I may be interested in.

Yes, I can just look at the first few responses to get the flavor and then click away and ignore that thread. But my greater point was to highlight the acrimony and rage on the subject that - in my opinion - is more of a divisive force than a uniting one on DU.

It was pointed out that spirited discussion in areas of disagreement is a good thing as it helps us consider all viewpoints and shows that we can tolerate dissent and be open to all points of view - a characteristic largely not known on the political right.

But, I maintain that discussions of this issue have gone well beyond noble disagreement and have sailed headlong into bashing, misinformation, name calling, mischaracterizations, turd-tossing and a slam-the-door-in-your-face finality that I feel is eroding our normally cohesive front (more or less) that I come to DU to experience.

I wish I could close my own thread here because it has become one of the ones I dread reading.

Oh, well - that's life on the Internet, I suppose!