Quote Originally Posted by KYS
I cannot help but feel that if these victims were 'someone else', or if Israel was 'someone else', the global response would have been completely different
There is some truth to that but I believe it stems from a total feeling of exasperation and lack of any new ideas - as well as some some long held bigotted beliefs.

I also agree with KYS' response in that atrocities are happening everywhere around the globe and that nothing is being done to help or prevent the loss of innocent life elsewhere (as well as in Lebanon). Often we see the world, it's events and happenings through our own "religious, cultural or historical" EYES!

When the BALTIC STATES WERE AT WAR - Serbia and Croatia a few years back - remember Milosevich?

A lot of horrible atrocities and ethnic cleansing was taking place. Being of Croatian ethnicity (2nd Generation) I knew a little more about the troubled past and old feuds between these two "VERY SIMILAR", yet different peoples. My parents are children of Croatian Immigrants... and of course, "Let me tell you", there was "NO" telling them "WHO" was at fault and who was doing what... It was undeniably "CLEAR" to them that it was the SERBIANS "who were at it AGAIN"!!!

I tried to keep an open mind and not harp on past "wrongdoings, old he saids, she saids, he started its". I was hoping for a fresh start... a new beginning and an end to the long standing feuds and senseless violence. Heck, before the war, Serbs and Croats had been living together for generations now and intermarrying, etc.

If you do not know much about these people, let me tell you. It is hard to tell them apart. Same genetic gene pool, SAME EXACT LANGUAGE, same culture, foods, dress, dance and both Christian (for the most part). Differences and feuds began a "LONG" time ago and are still held onto by many (someone mentioned how HATE is LEARNED and passed on through generations). I don't want to into because it is so convoluted and complex and STUPID.

POINT IS... my parents had already decided who's side they were on and had a totally different perspective than perhaps someone else who was watching "the same news coverage". An interesting point is that one day I was casually discussing recent events with an associate who has a very Serbian/Croatian sounding name - like mine is. He is the same age as me - 47 and "totally Americanized". We are Americans and really have "no current attachment" to our former countries. Well... as I said, it is hard to tell a Serb from a Croat and the names sound exactly the same. We were talking in Serbo-Hrvatski (same language) and he must have just assumed I was a Serb, when he went into a tirade of allegations, accusations and comdemnations of the "damn" Croats!!! LOL!!! - not really, but nothing to begin a "new feud over". Point is, we are both Americans, have no stake in the outcome of this war and both desparately would like to see an end to the age old violence and WAR, but he "sees things" very differently and through "his culturally and historically 'learned' eyes"!!!