Originally Posted by
GUWonder
2. With regards to doing guard duty, that's a product of fear, an environment where a siege mentality exists. And as noted earlier, "racist profiling gives comfort to the angry, the scared, the ineffective trapped by impoverished thinking". To claim that doing guard duty in the manner you noted is not the result of fear, at least in part, would strike me as dingenuous.
Just because I'm paranoid doesn't negate the fact that they may really be out to get me.
If that guard duty didn't exist in places like Dov's community, do you truely believe there wouldn't be an increase in the number of residents of those communities who were murdered each year? Yes, of course it is a response to fear, but it is a measured fear based on an absolute reality. And in response they have found a way to increase safety and to still go on with their normal lives. To me that is a very sane and balanced response.
You mention the comparison with India. You'll probably label me as racist for stating this, but IMHO the government and people of India are more willing to accept a certain level of civilian casulties than are the gov't and people of Israel. Also,given the different population levels, the deaths of 10 Israelis is a much higher proportional impact on the nation than the deaths of 1000 Indians. (since the population of India is 2000 times greater than that of Israel). *
*note that I do agree with an old Zen buddist in San Francisco who once told me that every human being is an entire universe. The death of that human is the destruction of that universe. I'm not comparing the value of human life in India and Israel, just the proportional impact on society of each individual.
I hope we're not slipping OMNI here...