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Notes -
First: yes, the Western insulation from war and violence is doing a lot of the work on this issue. Our decisions over here won’t ever lead to a rocket hitting our neighborhood. As long as supporting/condemning Palestine is basically cost-free, we’re going to get people playing tribal politics rather than carefully trying to construct a solution. No surprise.
Second: no way. Calls for a ceasefire are the fruit of a deeply Christian national character. They are the extreme form of turning the other cheek. This holds true even when the perpetrators are unrepentant, because Christian thought just views punishment differently. “Eye for an eye” is Old Testament, after all.
(I also disagree with your characterization of Christian fundamentalism, but that’s beside the point.)
Telling the Israelis not to fight back is deontological. There are good things and bad things, and bombing Palestine is presumed to be a bad thing. All the rest of this discourse—the naïveté, the tone-deafness, the lack of an alternate plan—stems from this one assumption.
It kind of seems like when you say "eye for an eye" you mean "makes the whole world blind", i.e. forgiveness instead of retribution. Just to be clear, the Old Testament is in favor of eye for an eye.
Leviticus 24, 19-20.
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