The whole mess of things

I enjoy reading Jeremy Nell’s blog. I’m usually a silent reader preferring not to contribute comments and just enjoy his cartoons and satire, however last week I left a couple of comments on the Israel – Gaza mess and my opinions where taken rather badly by some of his readers. I was called an idiot and told that I didn’t have a clue. Which is fine by me, as I couldn’t care much for that sort of thing, what did annoy me however was the lack of respect that these guys had for opinions not their own, at the beginning of the Israeli invasion into Gaza I was all for the attack, I saw the reports on TV and thought “yeah, you don’t wanna mess with Israel cos they are hardcore!” Then for some reason I decided late one night to look into the situation a bit deeper, I read up on Israel’s history and the Palestinian struggle and I visited numerous news website’s and read reports and blogs and stories from both Israeli’s and Palestinians and I started to develop an informed opinion on the situation, my basic opinion was that Hamas AND Israel are at fault, I condemn the actions of Hamas and I condemn Israel for it’s disregard for human life. I am deeply saddened by the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza and I believe Israel’s actions are only going to breed more hatred from the Muslim world.

Frank Zappa once said that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds. I believe this to be true and I was not commenting my opinions with the goal of changing anyone’s mind. I was just contributing to the discussion about one of Jeremy’s cartoons. I did not enjoy the fact that some of these guys where so blind to the real humanitarian situation in Gaza and they were saying this is war and no wars are pretty, just because it’s war doesn’t make it right.

Jeremy later posted that some people read too much into his cartoon, which I find to be a bit of a cop out, the cartoon was a truthful representation of what is happening in Gaza and I doubt giving one’s opinion about the subject that he chose to draw about is reading too much into it. It is what it is… a bloody mess!

P.S. Jeremy’s cartoon today is also great!