It seems that the culture of victimhood is EVERYWHERE, including Malaysia! Apparently, there were 1000-strong rallies led by PAS to protest against the ‘Israeli aggression’. They marched to the US Embassy and burned an effigy of Bush, and an Israeli flag.

News articles here and here.

"Democratic principles"? Oh, yes, of course. Hamas democracy, I guess. Launching rocket attacks into a UN-recognized country is fine, as long as you don’t recognize the existence of that country. It’s like waking up one day and suddenly thinking that Singapore seceded illegally from Malaysia, and the island is still our territory but a bunch of commies annexed it and ‘occupied’ it.. It’s alright for us to launch rocket attacks on Singapore and say it conforms to ‘democratic principles’ as long as we don’t recognize Singapore, right? Who gives a shit if the UN recognizes Singapore?

And these are the people who endlessly talk about Israeli ‘violating UN resolutions’? Why isn’t anyone kicking these idiots in the nuts?

Why is it okay if terrorists do it, but when military powers launch a counter-offensive, it’s always ‘oppression’ and ‘massacre’ even though the death toll from terrorist attacks are higher?

Why is it that portraying oneself as the ‘victim’ lets one get away with terrorism, and why is it that terrorists and their supporters never take responsibility for their actions, saying that "The Evil West made us do it", or "Years of oppression pushed us over the edge" and other such nonsense? Look at the British bombers, or those responsible for 9/11, and most other high-profile terrorists. Most of them come from middle-class families, at least. Some of them are well-off. All of them are well-educated. And all of them are described as mild-mannered and helpful by those who know them. Are they oppressed? Are they victimized? Something else triggers the tendency towards terrorism in them, blaming oppression and racism are just excuses.

The article here is interesting, particularly for the comments that follow.

Screw this "I’m the oppressed victim" bullshit and pick yourselves up, for goodness sake. And of course, the Arab-Israeli conflict is supposedly one of the factors that keep this perception going. It has gone to the extent where we don’t have to give a damn about it, but somehow our society reacts to it, much like how some people ‘feel the pain of our fellow brothers in Iraq’. Based on the actions of the United States, which many erronously perceive as a Christian theocracy, there have also been incidences of discrimination against Christians right here, in Malaysia, including hate slurs against Christians and slander against Christians openly published in some popular supernatural-themed local tabloids.

This is how hate spreads, when people see each other as a great global ‘brotherhood’ who ’shares the pain’ and are hence collectively "victims" of "oppression" and "Western hegemony". And where does it originate? In the Arab-Israeli conflict, where Arabs are the ‘oppressed’ victims AND yet, in a puzzling way, they also happen to be the ones who have repeatedly rejected peace.

All the more reason to end it soon.

Just something that caught my attention just now. On the one hand, I feel sorry for this guy. On the other hand, this is kinda funny.

A Palestinian youth pretends to fire at Israeli troops behind a burning
barricade during an Israeli army incursion in Beit Lahiya, in the
northen Gaza Strip, Friday July 7, 2006. At least twenty-four
Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed in fighting that broke
out in the Gaza Strip after Israeli tanks and troops, backed by
aircraft, seized control of a ribbon of land in the northern part of
Gaza in an attempt to win freedom for a captured soldier and put Israel
out of the militants’ increasingly longer rocket range.

On the other hand, others are making more valuable contributions to their society:

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza (Reuters) - A dozen small boys, not yet teenagers, were among relatives gathered at a funeral in Gaza on Friday for a young man killed in clashes between Palestinian militants and Israeli troops.

Asked if they would learn from the death of 19-year-old Mohammed Maher Shahine, killed while watching Thursday’s fighting as Israel stepped up an offensive in the strip, the boys answered almost with one voice.

"No. We want to be martyrs too," they said, seemingly oblivious to the danger of following around bands of gunmen as they battle more powerful Israeli troops, who are backed by tanks and helicopters.

"What is there to learn?" asked Jamal Shahine, 42, a cousin of the deceased as dozens of relatives gathered under a mourning tent. "All these boys just want to fight."

The streets of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and other Gaza districts were filled with funerals on Friday as many of the 20 Palestinians killed on Thursday — the biggest death toll from a day of violence in nearly two years — were buried.

Militants from various factions, including Fatah, the ruling Hamas movement and Islamic Jihad, fired bullets into the air as the bodies of militants and civilians, wrapped in faction flags, were taken from morgues to mosques and on to burial.

The crowds watching the funerals said most of those killed on Thursday were civilians, but as the bodies were carried past, mourners also described many as fighters killed in battle.

"He was a Qassam launcher," explained one mourner as the body of Ahmed Abu Askar was born aloft through the crowd, saying he and two others had tried to fire a rocket at Israel.

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

Mohammed Maher Shahine wasn’t a fighter. Instead he had left his job at a shop and jumped on his bicycle when he heard about clashes between militants and Israeli troops in Beit Lahiya.

"His father tried to tell him not to go, but he didn’t listen," said Jamal Shahine, the cousin.

He said Mohammed was killed in an Israeli missile strike on a house that also killed three others and wounded seven. "They were all civilians in the street," he said.

Israel said the strike killed only militants hiding in the house. Its offensive, aimed at forcing gunmen to free a captured soldier and stop rocket fire, began last week.

During Thursday’s clashes, which came as Israeli troops battled to build a buffer zone to prevent the rocket fire, small children followed Palestinian fighters at every turn, greatly increasing the risk of civilian casualties.

The boys at Mohammed’s funeral, taking place under a green awning provided by Hamas, said they would like to go and watch the next clashes, if there were any.

The only one who was silent was the brother of Mohammed, 16-year-old Mahmoud.

"My brother is dead, what can I say," he said.

Damn the Zionist oppressors for brutally murdering innocent Palestinians!