Why do they do the things that they do?
Yesterday I listed three basic assumptions of the Israeli left:

1. Israeli occupation is the root of the conflict.
2. There is no existential danger to the State of Israel (from the Palestinians).
3. There is no military solution to the conflict.

And a conclusion:
There is no moral justification whatsoever for any Israeli military action against the Palestinians.

I would like to point out that these assumptions are only relevant to the Zionist left. I’m not sure at what point on the left-lefter-leftest continuum people stop being Zionists.

I was never very far left. I was what you would call moderate left. The conclusion above was never acceptable to me, but the three assumptions were the basis of my support of the Oslo Accords.

This ICT analysis of the statistics of fatalities on both sides of the current Palestinian/Israeli conflict is dedicated to a gentle Israeli lady I know, who feels so bad about the Palestinians’ suffering that she believes that we deserve the terrorist attacks. She thinks the numbers of the dead should be more even.

Please don’t feel angry with this lady, even if you think she is wrong. When she said what she said I felt very angry indeed. But she is not a fanatic and this discernment of hers made her very sad. She said she was afraid to say it out loud.

I don’t know how many Palestinians are capable of such compassion. I would like her to know that things are more even than she realizes.

I’ve linked to this before. I think it is important enough to bring up again.

If you take in account the three assumptions and the conclusion, people like this lady are reacting quite logically to the situation. The only difference between them and me is that I changed my mind about the three assumptions, based on what I perceive to be quite concrete evidence that all three are erroneous.

They, on the other hand, seem to experience no real change in the situation (maybe just more of the same) so there really is no reason for them to change their views.

If you accept the three assumptions then clearly you don’t interpret the current hostilities as a war, but as a popular uprising caused by Israel’s misguided policies (If you haven’t read the Ehud Ya’ari article I linked to yet, go read it). In this case, you don’t consider your activities as anything like treason, but as legitimate pressure on your government to change these policies. Any attempt by the government to curb these activities of yours, will be regarded by you as oppression.

Because of assumption #2, the left sees nothing wrong with violently opposing Israeli police and armed forces; breaking Israeli laws; encouraging foreign intervention; researching and publicizing Israel’s “crimes” worldwide and so on. Thus the left has become the tool of the Palestinian propaganda machine.

The question is when do we decide that they’ve gone too far and put them in prison?

The worst of it is the effect they have on the Palestinians. They claim that the government’s policies are increasing hatred and causing the escalation in violence (I like this increasing hatred assertion. So before we did such and such, they hated us 85% much and now they hate us 87% much. That certainly makes a big difference).

But I think they are the ones causing the escalation. For one thing, they are actively encouraging the Palestinians by giving them the false impression that Israeli society is split, and that there is a sizeable opposition to the governments policies, and therefore the violence is doing the job.

Left wing movements and publications regularly present Israeli opinion poll results in a misleading fashion. Take the polls showing that a large majority of Israelis is willing to give up the territories and evacuate settlements, for instance. Talk about taking things out of context! Of course the Israeli public is ready for generous concessions. This is not new, for goodness sake. But not now, not till we’ve won the war, not till the Palestinians have proved themselves, above all doubt, to be a reliable partner.

The fact is that Jewish society in Israel is unified, as it hasn’t been for many years, in the determination to fight this war, and win it.

Unfortunately, although they’re a small minority, the stuck-in-old-concepts left are very loud and well connected in the media.

Fred Lapides, this is all your fault, you know. You sent me those statistics, and now I've gone and bored my poor readers half to death.