I Don't Feel Bad For You

The combined forces of 5 armies from Arab nations lost to Israel in 1948. The Arabs lost in humiliating fashion in 1967. They initially caught Israel off guard in the Yom Kippur war but were again defeated. It must have been some time after the Yom Kippur War, but before the First Intifada that the Arab leadership (I will interchangeably refer to Arabs and palestinians throughout, I am aware not all Arabs are palestinians) finally began to realize that war with Israel was not going to bring about Israel's destruction. So, their leadership changed their tactics. Instead of warfare, it would make more continued use of terrorism (to be sure, the PLO had engaged in terrorist acts for years prior to the First Intifada) as a tactic. This was clearly more practical for the PLO. They could offer supportive nations plausible deniability for what happened to the aid and materials these nations provided the PLO. Terrorism requires less training for conscripts and is more dramatic; it is much easier to find an illiterate teenager willing to blow himself up than feed, train and equip a soldier.
What is most important however, is that the PLO and what became the PA, found that their greatest weapon against Israel was not terrorism. No, their greatest weapon against Israel (and make no mistake, they aim to destroy Israel), is your sympathy. They know they cannot win a war. They know that most of us in the Western World wouldn't approve of the fundamentalist Hamas theocracy running a country. The Arabs know that the corruption that is rampant throughout the PA over decades is forgotten each time a headline shows a dead palestinian.
Here is what I say to them: I don't feel bad for you.
I didn't feel bad for you when you were offered a state in 1948, 1993 and 2001 and you rejected it every time and responded with suicide bombings.
I didn't feel bad for you in the summer of 2014, when the barrage of Hamas rockets resulted in Operation Protective Edge, killing hundreds of Gazans.
I didn't feel bad because if those rockets had never been fired, there never would have been an Israeli response.
And I Don't feel bad now when palestinian teenagers are being shot to death for stabbing Israelis in Jerusalem.
This might sound harsh, and it is. I know it. But I will not let your side exploit my sympathies to help you reach your goal. The words of Golda Meier are still true today. The question is not, when will Israel stop killing palestinian children. The question is, when will the Arabs stop encouraging their children to do things that cause their death? When will the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel? It's been over 40 years since Prime Minister Meier spoke on this, the when has not yet happened.
Again to the other side, I say, I don't feel bad for you. Maybe if enough of us in the US and throughout the Western World stopped feeling bad for you, you would realize that even exploiting the deaths of your children is useless.
But even before that, consider this: how has this strategy worked for your side? It hasn't. The Israelis left Gaza entirely in 2005 just as Hamas had always said it wanted. What happened? It became a Hamas terror breeding ground; digging tunnels into Israel and firing rockets. (If I remember correctly, over 700 a day were fired in July 2014 at the height of the war). What does Hamas or the PA have to show for their dead? Are they only closer to establishing a state? No. Are they any closer to destroying Israel? No, not with kitchen knives.
I don't feel bad for you. I don't want your side to keep stabbing Israelis, I want peace. But I won't feel bad if one of your children dies trying to murder an Israeli.