The key to winning these arguments - and I don't mean just here on QL - is to adopt a reasoned, educated, balanced position that at least appears to take the other side into consideration. Resorting to name-calling, hysteria, appealing to photos of dead children, however heartrending and compelling, will diminish your argument. THIS IS WHAT THE ISRAELIS KNOW AND HAVE BEEN SO SUCESSFUL AT. This is why Israel, until now, has appeared to win the propaganda war. Please, you don't want to turn off the Western world, as complicit as you may believe them to be. They can be your best friend, or your worst enemy. Do you remember after 9/11 when the sympathy of the world was with the US and how Bush blew it? Let's not blow this opportunity to appeal to the world's better angels by ugly rhetoric and hateful dialogue. Don't let others dismiss Arab and Muslim appeals by appearing "extremist." It's an opportunity for opening peoples' hearts not for closing their minds by insulting them.
Mandi
The key to winning these arguments - and I don't mean just here on QL - is to adopt a reasoned, educated, balanced position that at least appears to take the other side into consideration. Resorting to name-calling, hysteria, appealing to photos of dead children, however heartrending and compelling, will diminish your argument. THIS IS WHAT THE ISRAELIS KNOW AND HAVE BEEN SO SUCESSFUL AT. This is why Israel, until now, has appeared to win the propaganda war. Please, you don't want to turn off the Western world, as complicit as you may believe them to be. They can be your best friend, or your worst enemy. Do you remember after 9/11 when the sympathy of the world was with the US and how Bush blew it? Let's not blow this opportunity to appeal to the world's better angels by ugly rhetoric and hateful dialogue. Don't let others dismiss Arab and Muslim appeals by appearing "extremist." It's an opportunity for opening peoples' hearts not for closing their minds by insulting them.
Mandi