I have been a reader of the Israel/Palestine diaries for quite a while now. I’m extremely interested in the conflict in the Middle East. I think this steams back to my Hebrew school days where we learned in detail about the creation of Israel and the Israeli and Arab conflict. While in college my interest on the subject grew stronger when I took a class on Israeli/Arab affairs. Since then I have consumed as much material on the subject as I possibly can to try to wrap my head around the conflict.
I originally came to DKos to learn about the Democratic elections in 2006, being a resident of Connecticut this was a very important and confusing election for me and I sought out the DKos community for knowledge and direction. I’m not really sure how I discovered the I/P world on DKos but I remember being amazed on how many people wanted to discuss this issue on a blog geared to elect Democrats. After a while I realized that DKos has one of largest American debates on the subject and I became a regular viewer. I typically stay on the sidelines for these discussions, my debating skills are no match for the adamant posters here and I sometime have conflicting view on the situation in general. I do however read the latest diaries and all the comments almost everyday.
Today while reading the latest flame fest something happened to me. I stopped, looked up from my computer and realized something that disgusted me deep in my soul. After almost 2 years of spending time on this blog I learned something about myself. I learned that reading these diaries are purely a form of entertainment for me. I read these I/P diaries to see people get angry, say inflammatory things, and never resolve any issue. It’s like a soap opera. There is a cast of characters on both sides (you know who you are), raw human emotions and a storyline without a resolution.
The purpose of this diary is not only a self admission that I enjoy reading from these I/P flame wars but I also wanted to see if anyone of my other fellow I/P posters/readers had any of the same feelings. Now I’m sure there will be much backlash from the I/P regulars who truly believe that they are helping the cause or doing their part to help. But if they step back from their computers for 2 minutes and think about how much time they put into this blog and think with an honest mind how much they have done to resolve the I/P conflict they must realize that they enjoy the arguing and debating maybe a little too much.
Look I really don’t mean to criticize anyone here and I very well could be wrong in my assertions, but if a DKos user thinks they spend so much time on I/P diaries to fight for the cause and not selfish entertainment really needs to look deeper into their emotions.
Sorry if you feel the diary is inappropriate, but these are my views and that’s the way the cookie crumbles