A death wish for my family gets me thinking

Are right-wingers necessarily more violent than left-wingers?

Some might think the answer is obvious. Others might think that it’s a question I shouldn’t even ask to begin with.

Anyway, I don’t intend to crack it in this post. This one’s just going to be questions, thoughts and whatever arises. No conclusions…

I got to thinking about this issue after engaging in a futile quarrel with a Hasbara fascist troll who misread my last post and claimed I support the murderers of the Fogel family. I was also accused by Palestinian extreme nationalists (who said they “condemn” the murder) that I really had some nerve to not understand where the murderers “were coming from” due to decades of occupation. Lunacy, apparently, can be seen in both the occupiers and the occupied. But that’s another story. I’m nice n’ comfy if extremists on both sides have a problem with me.

Anyway, after deleting comments by the aforementioned pile of manure who goes by the name of Michael Alex, I later saw this “bona-fide” offer from Alex on his Facebook wall:

A death wish for my family gets me thinking
A death wish for my family gets me thinking
Some of my friends humored me, saying “Hey, Ramallah is a great place to picnic these days,” but alas, I don’t think these were the intentions of my new friend, the endangered feces Alex.

After not answering him, he wrote:
A death wish for my family gets me thinking

Which reminded me of a comment I got on my older blog over a year ago from the following fusty piece of feculence who goes by the name of Gabor:

A death wish for my family gets me thinking
I really do wish both Mr. Alex and Mr. Gabor the best of health and that modern medicine will soon find a cure for their ailments (I apologize, wishing death for my family tends to bring out the worst in me. I promise to work on this), but my question remains – why is right-wing rhetoric so violence-prone?

Truth be said, I could find no proof on the world-wide web that right-wingers are more violent than left-wingers, neither internationally nor locally. And if I’m not mistaken, there were times that this world suffered greatly from the hands of left-wing terrorism much more than the right. And let’s not forget, it was a “left-wing” minister of defense who killed more Palestinians than any other who held his post. So maybe it’s all about what left and right really is.

But at least on the local level, in the Israeli-Jewish scene, I believe I do have a feel and can say that the right is much more trigger happy in their rhetoric with calls for violence, profanity and death threats (some of my colleagues have received some). I’ve heard of a number of Israeli leftist activists or academics who have used violent rhetoric against settlers, but these cases seem to be a drop in the ocean of right-wing vitriol in the comment sections here on +972 and on main stream media sites. Again, I could be wrong – I have no stats on which to base these gut feelings.

I do think it’s safe to say that today when it comes to physical violence, the right in Israel wins hands down – both against Palestinians and against Jews (particularly extreme settler violence in the West Bank).

Is it due to the usual stereotypes? The usual cliches (I can just hear my colleagues on the left: “Ami, this is the most lame question you’ve ever asked. Of course they’re more violent”)? That right-wingers are more “machismo,” favor war more, are in love with good ‘ole fashion traditions and so on? That the left is more cultural, more subdued? At least that would explain some people who read my channel and seem to be surprised when a lefty like me bites back.

I hate using generalizations like that, since that’s what gets peoples into these messes to begin with. I presume labeling right-wingers as more prone to violence will even get me into trouble right here. Generalizing is dangerous. It’s like erroneously saying that Islam is more violent than Western culture. A look at the death toll in Iraq is enough to refute that one.

But I gotta wonder. I mean, you just don’t see many – if any – left-wingers on Facebook calling to “kill all the Kahanist mother-fucking traitors,” do you?

Or do you?

Maybe that’s why the left is so weak in the polls, too. They need to stop being so polite and get nasty (not physically nasty, of course – but attitude-wise).

(Apologies to readers for the messy post. I guess these guys make me lose my cool)