http://indymedia.org.il
Silly side note
author: Mark Bialkowski
"It is easy for affluent Europe to criticise Israel. You don’t live the life we have here."
Amit may have been directing his displeasure to Wilkie in particular, but the stab at Europe in general not having to live with the fear of being blown to bits (either by a young adult driven to strap on dynamite and take one last ride on Egged, or a young adult driven to aim an M-16 at some poor Arab kid's head) made me realize that myopia is not limited to Europe or North America.
Although the daily experience of fear may not be as intense, the British definitely had to worry about bombs going off across England for many years, during the decades of Provisional IRA activity. In Spain, the Basque militant group ETA makes its presence known in explosive fashion from time to time. Other readers can probably draw further parallels, related or not, from this juxtaposition.
This is all tangential to the author's primary point about prejudice, although as another poster noted, even in "mandatory" service situations, people have choices. Still, Wilkie blew it; he fumbled away a perfectly good opportunity to open a dialogue with a colleague about the horror that continues to play out in the Middle East to engage in a moment of spite.