Yakim Peled
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fraga wrote:
Sorry for the long post, but I am quite sad to see the way Yakim is being treated on this tread.
He is a well respected FM forum member for quite awhile and he is a very good contributor to this forum.
He is very polite and humble person. Always has been.
He is always willing to share his knowledge with whoever is willing to learn, yet he is always seeking knowledge for himself to improve as a photographer. He his a very, very humble person, and extends his gratitude to whoever shares is knowledge on this forum.
He posts here everyday and is one the major contributors to this forum, helping making it the best photo-related forum in existence today.
He is an example that should be followed by many of us. And by that I mean in a lot of different situations in our lives, not just photography-related.
Being born and living in Israel, it is quite obvious that, regardless of the fact that he stands or not by some or all of his countries policies (which he clearly does not, as he stated more than once!), he sees things just a little differently in a way that, even if he disagrees with the outcome, he might understand the reasons behind some of the actions of his fellow countryman.
Example: a hard-working, honest family man, who pays his taxes and has never committed a felony in his life, comes home from work to find his wife in bed with some one else. Since he has devoted his entire adult life to his wife and family, in a moment of what Americans call temporary insanity, he kills the wife, the man or both.
The outcome is that one or two human lives were lost because of a "simple" betrayal.
Can this act/outcome be justified?
NEVER!
Can we understand the reasons that led him to such an reflected act? I'm sure most of us can. We will not agree with the act itself, we will never say it was justified in conceivable way, but we can understand that everything that that man believed, everything he had worked for, everything that he believed in and loved was taken away from him in a split second, that he felt his whole world fall apart leading him to do something he would never be able to do or even consider to do were he in possession of all of his mental and psychological abilities.
Getting back to Yakim, while he clearly doesn't endorses his country's actions, being born and living there makes him able to understand the reasons behind some of them. That does not mean he agrees with them. Just that he understands them.
That is very clear and obvious, and is beyond me why people fail to understand this.
There are many things about my country that I dislike or even hate.
The impunity of corrupt politicians is just for starters. There are many others, like laws and courts that just protect the rights of criminals, without any care whatsoever for the victims. All that matters are the criminal's rights. Then you see people getting arrested 5 or 6 times and they are always released, waiting in freedom for a trial that will only happen in two years time, and that will give surely them a suspended sentence.
In my country's history that are also many things to be ashamed of, like the inquisition, the hunt and systematic killing of innocent women for alleged witchcraft, the use of slaves from Africa, etc.
One of the worst must have been the crusades, where killing of the infidels in the name of God was just a poor excuse in order to satisfy our thirst for power, wealth and land ownership.
Just like the invasion of Iraq in the name of fighting terrorism was a poor excuse. A very poor one in fact. Mind you that we Europeans are to blame as well, since we, as allies, backup up the Americans.
HOWEVER, if someone attacked my country, I wouldn't be all that happy about it. As most surely wouldn't any of you. Just be humble enough to put yourself on Yakim's shoes.
Let's take Germany for example.
The atrocities committed during WWII are well documented and constitute one of mankind's reasons to be ashamed of themselves... I'm sure everyone agrees.
However, attacking today someone born in Germany for what was done in the past is unjustified and constitutes an injustice, since he should not be blamed for that, unless he states that he endorses what was done during the war. I am sure almost all of Germans are not proud of what was done. Blaming them for that is not justified.
As Yakim stated: "You will be hard pressed to find any country on the globe which does not have some parts of its history which fill the hearts and minds of it's citizens with discomfort and even shame."
While I am not defending Israel in any way or shape, or it's policies (quite the contrary) I do not think it is fair to attack someone born in Israel just because of his nationality.
Yakim wrote that "just for the record, I do not think that anything Israel do is justified."
Why anybody feels the need to attack someone who just stated that is beyond me.
I will say it again:
Yakim is a well respected FM forum member for quite awhile and he is a very good contributor to this forum.
He is very polite and humble person. Always has been.
He is always willing to share his knowledge with whoever is willing to learn, yet he is always seeking knowledge for himself to improve as a photographer. He his a very, very humble person, and extends his gratitude to whoever shares is knowledge on this forum.
He posts here everyday and is one the major contributors to this forum, helping making it the best photo-related forum in existence today.
He is an example that should be followed by many of us.
And by that I mean in a lot of different situations in our lives, not just photography-related....Show more →
OMDG. I would say thank you but it would be the understatement of the year. However, sometimes words fail me so I will just say that: Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Happy shooting,
Yakim.
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if you promise to stop here and now. 
