One-sided, biased, propaganda

At Epworth UMC on 5th Sunday months, they bring in speakers in place of Sunday School. Yesterday, a retired minister and his wife came in to speak on their role as peace-keepers in the Middle East, specifically Israel-Palestine. I thought, 'Oh, this should be interesting.' Boy, was I mistaken. In fact, I almost walked out after 10-15 mintues. Why you might ask? Not because I have overly strong opinions of the area/events, in fact, I'll admit to being mostly uninformed. However, the presentation was a purely one-sided, Israeli bashing, pro-Palestinian affair. It was ridiculous. Everything that was said was about how bad Israel was and how poor, innocent all of Palestine is. I do not doubt for a second that Israel treats Palestinians poorly. But I also doubt that Palestinians are saints to Israelis. My understanding is that neither group likes the other one. A question was asked about Hammas (the radical Palestinian group often claiming the suicide bombers and whatnot). The speakers response: "Hammas is really a social justice group with a small sect that is radical." He continues, in the same response, to say that Israel is actively participating in "state terrorism" and talks of Zionists whom hate the Palestinians and move into the West Bank just to take away Palestinian land. Excuse me? The group that claims innocent lives by supporting suicide bombers is only a few rotten apples, but all of Israel is evil to the Palestinians. Its amazing how quick the speakers were to tell us not to stereotype Palestinians, but then they would stereotype the Israelis. Hypocrisy at its best. The only mention of any Israel notion was this, "We support an Israeli state." That's it. They support an exisiting country. Great for them. Their solution to the problem, a Palestinian State and an Israeli State with a split capital in Jerusalem. It sounds great to say, but they offered no solutions to the problems that would bring about. They support a Palestinian state with the creation of a military (their argument is that's the only way to stop the suicide bombings). That way, instead of a radical group performing terrorist activities, it'll be a military group performing "peace-keeping/police actions/national defense/etc. etc." Some solution.

Ok, I've ranted a little bit, but here's the bottom line. I don't know all the details. I'm sure things are bad for Palestinians, but I also doubt they are all hunky-dory for Israelis. I don't know the answer, but I do know one-sided, biased, propaganda horsecrap when I hear it. I'm sure I could find a website/peace-keeping group that would support Israel and spew BS about Palestine.

The quickest way to turn me off to your cause is to only talk about how right you are (or how wrong the other guy is). Be truthful and tell the whole story.

I'm out.