However, as far as I'm concerned, nobody, but nobody, has any excuse to threaten the world's major industrialized democracies. The United States is just what it sees itself to be: the world's leading democracy, the defender of freedom in two World Wars and the Cold War, and the generous nation that gave the world the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corps, and the Green Revolution. And the other industrialized countries are also peaceful people minding their own business in friendship with the United States.
Look, I'm no conspiracy nut.
But really? You don't see a reason for other countries to hate the west - USA and EU I mean?
For starters, it's a well known fact that we do a lot to protect our interests abroad, economical and other, and not all of those actions are especially 'generous' or 'peaceful' as you put it. Overthrowing regimes, assassinations, funding rebels and supplying them with arms while also supplying the opposite party with arms... A lot of it is understandable (although not ethical). Chaos and instability in other countries is good for us in some cases. Other motives could be fear of communism, or economically: fear that the wrong guys will attain power and they will refuse to do business with us, or worse, do business with the Chinese instead! But those motives don't justify us meddling abroad, meddling with the democratic process of other countries. Especially not if we claim to be the 'world's leading democracy'. Nicaragua, Chile, Guatemala? Not to mention what happened in the middle east in the 70-80's.
So yes, I do think that we have blood on our hands, and that there are a lot of reasons to not like the western industrial countries, to not see them as 'peaceful people minding their own businesses' but as hypocritical backstabbing egocentric and opportunistic bastards instead. Still, it's no excuse for violence. Talking to them can work in some cases, but if it doesn't you can only beat the egocentric backstabbing bastards with their own weapons: capitalism! Brasil got the idea. China did as well.
In the mean time we could try and be a little more fair and respectful towards the world.
As for Israel, I see the Zionist colonialism as an act of aggression as well. Stealing land because god wants them to... pretty fundamentalist. It's not official Israeli policy, but they don't act against it either. The blockage of Ghaza seems pretty aggressive as well, basically it's one open prison. Criminals get in, no one gets out. Are pencils allowed back in again btw? And then the constant checkpoints, searches and raids in the middle of the night, at the very least uncalled for badgerings. There are other ways to handle the situation. And other numerous examples of Israel actions that are pretty hard to defend. Now I don't condone terrorist acts of violence any more than I condone Israel military acts of violence, but I just want to make the point that this is a
two sided story.
There is the big wall as well, not an act of aggression, but isolation, out of fear. Not exactly a step towards a solution. Actually, this is in a nutshell the problem: fear. Israel strives for absolute safety. They try to achieve that goal by violence, repression, walls, checkpoints, blockages, etc. This can and will never work. It's in fact counterproductive. The more you fight them, the more they will fight back.
The only way to achieve absolute safety is: go for a solution. Solve the problem. Work things out with the Palestines. Go for the two state solution.
