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Are Americans Dumb or Just Plain Stupid?

By N. Shuldig

But what disturbed me the most was his perception that we Israelis were oppressing the Arabs. I was shocked to hear him say such dribble. Certainly the IDF does not permit free transfer of good between villages and towns. We have been the target of too many terror attacks. By checking on transfer of goods and people between locations the Israelis have managed to stop much of the terror attacks. But who caused what? Did the Israelis start these actions just to give the Arabs problems or did these actions occur as a means of protecting innocent Israeli Jews from constant and frequent terrorist attacks? We Israelis know that the latter is true. I have been here long enough to remember free access to Bethlehem, Ramallah and even Jenin, but that was before the intifada started.

But my nephew protested, how can we exist as a people if we oppress another nation? This is embedded in his brain that we are the evil enemies of peace even though the reality is just the opposite. In spite of his intelligence, he refused to contemplate this idea.

No one desires peace more than Israel, but peace is more than a piece of paper or a hand shake with a smile for the press, peace means more than just an exchange of goods; it means an internal desire for good will. We have never seen any such desire on the part of the Arabs. Just the opposite, while Israel can live with Arabs in their midst as full citizens, the Arabs refuse to consider keeping those Israeli settlements as part of a state of Palestine. Come to Jerusalem and see how many Arabs walk peacefully in downtown Jerusalem dressed in their traditional robes and then go to East Jerusalem with a kippa on your head and see how far you will get before you are assulted. Who wants peace? The Israeli Jews, not the Arabs!

Why not just give peace a chance? Echoes of the Beatles song, he keep saying, "all we are saying is give peace a chance". Simple, I told him. We did, it was called the Gaza pull out; what did we get from that? We got almost daily rocket attacks that were so bad that we had to make in incursion into Gaza to stop it.

Do you think we want the same from the Palestinian territories?

Are Americans Dumb or Stupid?

Dumb is indicative of lacking mental abilities; Stupid is indicative of possessing the mental elements needed for thinking but misusing them. I can not figure out, that in face of the overwhelming history, both contemporary and from the time of the beginning of Jews coming to the Land of Israel, one thing stands our clear: the Arabs have used lies as means to achieve their goals and never desired peace. They prefer living in poverty rather that make peace and share the wealth with the Israelis; yet the Americans do not seem to see clearly the problem. They see what they want to believe is the problem and do not bother with conflicting facts.