[preacher_man]

Is there any evidence in American history where my ancestors strapped bombs upon their children to blow up white people during the very real oppression of the Jim Crow era?
How is this relevant to anything? Different oppressors, different oppressed, different religious beliefs, different cultures... the list goes on and on.
Of course the reaction was different.

The point I was trying to make was that the reaction of a particular group can sometimes be expected or gauged, and that the likely reaction should not be ignored.

[SKempis]

If the violence of reaction is the guide, should juries such as the one in Simi Valley convict innocent people to avoid street riots?

Sorry, but people should not be held hostage, nor should the morality of an action be judged according to how terrible the reaction might be.

[rdb3]

How is this relevant to anything?

The fact that you cannot see the parallels demonstrate empirically that your take on this situation is indefensible.

You, and others who have mysteriously morphed from Right to Left, see the so-called Palestinians as "justified" in their reactions to the Israeli so-called "oppression." Yet my ancestors, who truly were oppressed, did not resort to violence as a means to an end. If they had done so, I wouldn't be here today.

Moral relativism doesn't cut it. Right is right if no one is doing it, and wrong is wrong if everyone is doing it. What Arafat is doing is wrong, period. End of story.