If Samir Kuntar is a hero then Mother Theresa was an evil criminal. He bashed the head of a little girl! Is that heroism?

Man, some people are really stupid.

I would say the two things not only compliment each other but aslo can be related. Superiority -> unfair treatment in some sense. People have to feel entitled to privaledge in order to accept it. Slave masters in America thought themselves above the slaves. Unfair treatment everywhere stems from what you describe as superiority. It manifests itself differently in different places. Maybe the Israelis are more overt about it. But I can’t say they are the only ones with the problem. After all, humans are bad by nature. It takes effort for them to do good while evil comes with ease (or so it would seem these days).

I do not disagree with what you mentioned. I just tried to emphasize that “Superiority + Unfair Treatment of Others” is somehow more troublesome.

The same can be said vice-versa. Many westerners argue that the burden of change and reform lies with some of the nations in the Islamic world. After all, countries like Iran, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have wonderful human rights records. Bottom Line: Many Middle Easterners find the West’s criticism of their governments to be hypocritical. Many Westerners find criticism by Middle Eastern nations to be hypocritical. The same defective though process utilized by both sides is supported when each “team” chooses independently which political issues on which to focus.

I like this site because it seems to encourage self-criticism on BOTH sides of a given issue. For example, I have seen Israelis and Arabs criticize their respective nations. I feel that self-criticism is the first step to owning up to your actions and taking responsibility for change. Thats not to say you cannot identify unjust behavior in others…However, do not judge others before you judge yourself. No one is perfect, and you must strive to improve yourself in the same way you strive to improve others. That being said, I feel that the midset behind posts like this, which glorify a murderer simply because his enemies had done wrong, are counterpoductive and only lead to prolonged conflict if followed by those in power. If I blame you you will blame me back. Then again, sometimes the people in power want prolonged conflict…but that is another issue.

Most of the articles on MAY, particularly those that present views you are not fully agree with, make you think and challenge opinions and knowledge claims you have previously held. That’s the beauty of this initiative. Unlike those articles, this one is presenting a simplistic picture without much context or thoughtful analysis. This makes the argument it presents very easy to disagree with, or more so to dismiss it altogether.

It is good to know that this opinion is out there (in case you haven’t followed any media recently), but it is sad to see it here – a place that, at least in my view, hosts a more thoughtful debate.

In an environment where Arab fighters are typically forgotten

Arab fighters like Kuntar aren’t and were never forgotten. But other Arab fighters – all these academics, intellectuals, human rights activists – who were abused and left abandoned and TRULY forgotten in these Arab and Iranian prison cells, what about them then? These are the real Arab fighters who are “typically forgotten,” not Hezbollah militants.

Is it because they did not spend 30 years in an Israeli prison? If they spent 30 years in an Arab prison for fighting for a noble cause, they are what? Um, nothing, unfortunately. They mean nothing to the Arab media, nothing to the Western media, nothing. No one even campaigns for their release, certainly not any religious extremists. These are the real heroes who are forgotten. Not the people outside parading with guns right now.

If you want to be a hero, maybe you should spend half of your life in an Israeli jail and then come out moralizing and setting yourself as the example.

With your logic, then the young Israeli soldiers who were imprisoned or have died for their cause should be equally considered heroes. This is essentially what you are defining as a hero.

There are millions of people in the region against Hezbollah and are scared shitless of them, and not at all because they are crazy liberals or Westerners or Zionists like some of you may claim. It’s simply because radical militancy is retarded and sad and will rob us of the kind of freedoms that we all deserve. Like Israeli soldiers, they are resorting to violence (because the machine guns in their logo suggest otherwise?) and in turn causing more violence, however indirectly it may be. They’re not heroes. And people who don’t call them heroes aren’t part of a small minority who should be isolated and laughed at, we too have serious concerns concerning the legitimacy of an organization whose primary support comes from criminal governments that have mass murdered millions of innocent people throughout history, such as that of Iran. No, not heroes. Just a bunch of radical extremists with guns claiming to want freedom by making other people pay with their blood. Really, that makes you better than the Israeli criminals? Why don’t you call them heroes too then?

I want and wish the best for the Palestinian people. I just don’t agree with the tactics of trying to gain this freedom, I believe it will only get worse. A huge consequence is that the international world will be siding with the Israeli army and legitimize Israeli concerns when the Palestinian people, as a nation, aren’t a threat – just the people who claim to represent them, and then, yet again, they will be the ones paying the price, with their dead children and dismantled homes. What for? They deserve much better, and they will get it, but I don’t believe that they will get it under Hezbollah or any support from Iran, whose involvement in this is political and not out of concern for the Palestinian people.