Maurice, I really don’t know about the law, but can you go around cursing and threatening other people with impunity?

Clearly. To get some kind of chance of dialog, I posted a new reply on that article, addressing my pen-pal and saying they’re wrong about me and I’d love to talk with them.
They won’t likely read it, but if they do they will be pretty damn confused!

There’s no use getting worked up over something like this. (I did at first, for a few minutes.) This person is clearly acting on fear and anger (which is a defense mechanism against fear.) They are driven to confrontation, perhaps out of despair, which is a perfectly reasonable reaction to what’s going on in Israel/Palestine. I’m driven by despair as well, some of the time, when it comes to Israel (I’d be posting more about linguistics and education if I weren’t feeling that despair).
But when a person acts out their hate and anger there’s nothing to gain by responding with further confrontation, hate or anger. That gives them control of the situation. Responding with an attempt at dialog and at least some measure of compassion takes control away from them and can potentially do something (however little) for that fear/hate.

I’ve been thinking lately that if we are ever to achieve peace, justice and normality, at some point we have to start engaging the Israeli mainstream and right wing. These are groups whose political outlook is dominated by fear, and often hate. Israel’s politics of rapid response to fear and hate — which have been there longer than the state — have not gotten us anywhere so far, and as hard as it is, we have to unilaterally disengage from them.

P.S.
For unspectacular reasons, I hardly slept last night. This is my excuse for being so contemplative, as well as for anything illogical or silly I may have written today.

Hi Shoshana,

It’s ugly, it’s revealing, but it’s not against the law. And I think Pete is right.

Hi Dena (it must be you), nice to see you here :-))

Hear-hear.

Neither the style nor the rapid disappearance make it sound like you are being invited into dialog. More like you’re being ambushed.

Spanish. When I was trying to learn Danish it was Danish… It’s a surprisingly useful tool for language learning… I’ll never forget how to say “share” or “like” in either language. :)