it's become a habit for many to blame Israel

Submitted by Mark Rcca (United States), Apr 20, 2013 at 08:19

Some of my friends, who are definitely of the "left" persuasion (I am not either "right" or "left", I try to use both sides of my brain), instinctively cite Israel as the cause of anything that happens in the Middle East. For example it took me a while to explain to one of them that the 70K killed in Syria was due to a civil war, an internal Syrian conflict that Israel had nothing to do with.

When he finally understood it, I asked why did he originally make the assumption Israel was somehow at fault. He said, it may be the years of conditioning of the media. So, even though the mainstream media is not blaming Israel for Syria, many people (especially of the Left) who are not familiar with the events, will make that knee-jerk reaction, "Israel is at it again".

I think it will take time to for people to get used to the idea that Israel is not the default culprit. The Syrian civil war has taken many more casualties than all of the Intifadas combined, but a lot of people are not making that connection yet (because folks tend to think with only one side of their political brain..)

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