It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fabulous)

Just got up, just heard Steve Inskeep of Morning Edition on NPR angrily asking the Israeli Ambassador Sallai Meridor (whom Horowitz dispatched on this site last night) what the goals were, when it was going to be over, aren't you empowering Hamas, etc. I missed the beginning of the interview, it doesn't matter. Inskeep was short with the ambassador, almost trembling with contained feeling. Inskeep is the son of an English teacher and grew up in Indiana. He's a real American, as my good friend Sarah Palin used to say. And he's at NPR, which administers the IV drip every morning on what Elite Blue Staters Are Allowed to Think. And he's angry. This would never have happened before. Inskeep would have checked himself and thought about the mantra, Israel's right to exist, Arabs have never missed an opportunity, what would Daniel Schorr with his Zionist mama say, blah blah blah...

It's over baby. The whole thing is over. I'm telling you. America is waking up at last and realizing that the warm cuddly furball it adopted in 1948 is a monster. A few weeks ago one of my anti-Zionist friends murmured in an email to me, "I hate that f---ing country." I was shocked; it's not something I feel. But I think that sentiment is now seeping out through my country, and affecting people like Inskeep. The American street is rising up. And everyone who has taken the wrong side of this easy important choice called the Gaza Slaughter, from Mayor Bloomberg to Jeffrey Goldberg, is suddenly going to find themselves on an ice floe to nowhere. Just ask the neoconservatives. (Jeffrey, get right with the lord, we need you.) It really is the end of the Israel lobby, or a new phase. What Jack Ross said here yesterday is right. J Street and MJ Rosenberg are in the driver's seat; Obama is going to have room to be tough on Israel. 385 Palestinians have lost their lives for a reason. A horrifying thing to say (but it is what Norman Finkelstein said a month ago).

As Ross said, it might even be the end of the two-state solution, this moment when Americans see ethnic cleansing/genocide/apartheid, give it whatever name you please, and look at their wives or husbands and say, I hate that frakkin country, why have we believed a word they told us. I know, I'm dramatic, my wife always tells me that. But I'm right. And guess what's the next shoe to drop? The Nakba. You heard it here first.

(Photo is from Shifa Hospital, 2 days ago, likely by Suhaib Salem of Reuters.) 

Comments

[HideWitty]

Massacre: 390 Gazans killed vs 28 Israelis from Gaza missiles
News Type: Event — Wed Dec 31, 2008 1:48 AM EST
world-news, us, war, israel, australia, human-rights, germany, art, america, palestine, hamas, gaza, nazi, palestinian, painting, madonna, hitler, israeli, oz, homicide, da-vinci-code, geneva-convention, palestinian-genocide
Gideon Polya

"Jerusalem Madonna" by Gideon Polya

Update from authoritative Israeli and media sources: in the LAST WEEK Israelis have killed 390 Gazans in ostensible response to 28 Israeli deaths from Gaza rockets and mortars over 8.25 YEARS.

I have illustrated this article with my huge painting "Jerusalem Madonna" that honors the Mothers of Occupied Palestine (for further details of this work that fuses Medieval Islamic tile art geometry , Renaissance Italian Fibonacci Sequence-based (Golden Rectangle, Divine Section, Da Vinci Code) geometry, Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox iconography and 20,000 year old figurative elements, see "Zionism, Occupation, Palestinian Genocide. “Jerusalem Madonna”. Mother & Child ": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17194/42/).

According to official Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs data and the latest media reports, a total of 28 Israelis have been killed by Gaza rockets and mortars in the period September 2000 to December 2008 inclusive (see latest media reports and “list of Qassam rocket attacks”

[steve R]

THUS THE VIEW FROM UP JACK ROSS'S ASS. . . .
. Maybe your opinion will change when President Nigger shoots a Palestinian child live on TV.

[Me]

Well I fear that Mossad and it's allies are already shaping up some false-flag event to frame on Palestinians/the broader Muslim community, in order to bring public sentiment back where it "belongs".

[anon]

Israel is in America's hands and everyone knows it. Time fir America
Firsters to speak up, stand at every Israeli post to break through
the USA media & governmental blockade against our best interests (and that of Israel's too)!

http://rockthetruth.blogspot.com/2008/12/israel-is-americas-hands.html

[anonn]

Obama, to Palestinians and American protesters: Golf, anyone?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-maintains-silence-in-first-major-test-1218223.html

[Lysander]

I hope what your saying is true. But 10 years ago, I don't think the Italian FM would be rationalizing the Israeli attack. Nor would the French president, the British PM (well, Blair probably would have but John Major wouldn't) the German chancelor, etc.

They have never had this many people looking away and pretending not to notice.

[peters]

Thank you Phil Weiss for quoting your friend's letter, and thank you for understanding the feeling behind it. I know you don't share that feeling, but allowing it to be said , with tolerance, is a relief to those of us who feel the same way.
I hate that fucking country too. I hate the lies that come out of it and the lies that are spun around it. I hate what it is doing to my country.

[Todd]

What happens if a corner is turned? Do we get to completely wash our hands of Israel? Do we get to turn away refugees form each side? Will Israel's debts be called in and paid by Israelis? Will there be real justice for Palestininas who have been victims, and Americans who have been slandered for expressing anti-Israel opinions? Will the Daniel Schorrs of the world be discredited and blacklisted instead of promoted as they are now? Will the people who have subverted America's interests pay? Do Americans deserve justice for the money taken from them and the damage done to their nation in the name of Israel?

A few semi-honest headlines and faux anger on NPR may be a start, but it's not nearly enough.

[rabbi kook]

Ditto here, peters, and the same diagnosis for the USA:

December 30, 2008

America's Crimes "Never Happened"

May We No Longer Be Silent

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The title of my article comes from the sermon of the Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC, John Bryson Chane, delivered on October 5, 2008, at St. Columba Church. The bishop’s eyes were opened to Israel’s persecution of Palestinians by his recent trip to Palestine. In his sermon he called on “politicians seeking the highest office in [our] land” to find the courage to “speak out and condemn violations of human rights and religious freedom denied to Palestinian Christians and Muslims” by the state of Israel.

Bishop Chane’s courage was to no avail. When America’s new leader of “change” was informed of Israel’s massive air attack on the Gaza Ghetto, an area of 139 square miles where Israel confines 1.4 million Arabs and tightly controls the inflow of all resources--food, medicine, water, energy--America’s president-elect Obama had “no comment.”

According to the Jerusalem Post ( December 26), “at 11:30 a.m., more than 50 fighter jets and attack helicopters swept into Gazan airspace and dropped more than 100 bombs on 50 targets. . . . Thirty minutes later, a second wave of 60 jets and helicopters struck at 60 targets . . . More than 170 targets were hit by IAF aircraft throughout the day. At least 230 Gazans were killed and over 780 were wounded . . .”

As I write, news reports are that Israel is sending tanks and infantry reinforcements in preparation for a ground invasion of Gaza.

Israel’s excuse for its violence is that from time to time the Palestinian resistance organization, Hamas, fires off rockets into Israel to protest the ghetto life that Israel imposes on Gazans. The rockets are ineffectual for the most part and seldom claim Israeli casualties. However, the real purpose for the Israeli attack is to destroy Hamas.

In 2006 the US insisted that the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank hold free elections. When free elections were held, Hamas won. This was unacceptable to the Americans and Israelis. In the West Bank, the Americans and Israelis imposed a puppet government, but Hamas held on in Gaza. After unheeded warnings to the Gazans to rid themselves of Hamas and accept a puppet government, Israel has decided to destroy the freely elected government with violence.

Ehud Barak, who is overseeing the latest act of Israeli aggression, said in interviews addressed to the British and American publics that asking Israel to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas would be like asking the US to agree to a ceasefire with al Qaeda. The terrorism that Israel inflicts on Palestinians goes unremarked.

According to the London Times (December 28), “Britain and the United States were on a collision course with their European allies last night after refusing to call for an end to Israeli airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza. The wave of attacks marked a violent end to President George W. Bush’s sporadic Middle East peace efforts. The White House put the blame squarely on Hamas.” The British government also blamed Hamas.

For the US and UK governments, Israel can do no wrong. Israel doesn’t have to stop withholding food, medicine, water, and energy, but Hamas must stop protesting by firing off rockets. In violation of international law, Israel can drive West Bank Palestinians off their lands and out of their villages and give the stolen properties to “settlers.” Israel can delay Palestinians in need of emergency medical care at checkpoints until their lives ebb away. Israeli snipers can get their jollies murdering Palestinian children.

The Great Moral Anglo-Americans couldn’t care less.

In his 2005 Nobel Lecture, British playwright Harold Pinter held the United States and its British puppet state accountable for “the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought.” Everyone knows that such crimes occurred in the Soviet Union and in its East European empire, but “US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognized as crimes at all,” this despite the fact that “the United States’ actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.”

Soviet crimes, like Nazi ones, are documented in gruesome detail, but America’s crimes “never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

America’s is “a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words ‘the American people’ provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don’t need to think.”

Pinter presents a long list of American crimes and comes to Iraq: “The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was . . . an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading--as a last resort--all other justifications having failed to justify themselves--as liberation.” Americans and their British puppets “have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East.”

“How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal?” Pinter’s question can also be asked of Israel. Israel has been in violation of international law since 1967, protected by the United States’ veto of UN Resolutions condemning Israel for its violent, inhumane, barbaric, and illegal acts.

American evangelical Christians, who are degenerating into Zionists, are Israel’s greatest allies. Jesus is forsaken as Christians swallow whole the Israeli lies. A couple of years ago the US Presbyterian Church was so distressed by Israel’s immorality toward Palestinians that the church attempted to disinvest its investment portfolio from assets tainted with Israel. But the Israel Lobby was stronger. The Presbyterian Church was unable to stand up for Christian principles and knuckled under to the Israel Lobby’s pressure.

This is hardly surprising considering that the US government doesn’t stand for Christian principles either.

America’s doctrine of “full spectrum dominance” means that, like Lenin’s dictatorship, America is not bound by law or morality, but by power alone.

Pinter sums it up in a speech he had dreams of writing for President George W. Bush:

“God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden’s God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam’s God was bad, except he didn’t have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don’t chop people’s heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don’t you forget it.”

If only our ears could hear, this is the speech we have been hearing from Israel for 60 years.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good

[Crimson Ghost]

Phi:

I hope you are right that this latest massacre will take the lobby down a few pegs or perhaps more than a few pegs but I have my doubts.

[morris]

Not a chance of anything changing. America is Israel, Obama cannot do a thing. Israel is the keyboard you type on, the telephone line your internet goes on, and the car that you drive, think again ......

[Mike]

Finkelstein is right (per usual) in predicting "the coming break up of American zionism" and in pointing to the Carter book as the first major fissure. I'm not exactly sure what the elite response to the shift in public opinion will be, but be sure it will be profoundly dishonest and cynical.

[American]

I don't think it is over but I think it is getting there.

What I do know is the American street is enraged..they are seeing right thru the media slant this time.

When I talked to the jewish member at our busines meeting Monday I was encourage to find that he has been speaking out about the Israeli attack...and I believed him becuase he was, as they say,'incensed'...so angry the minute I broached the subject he went ito a tirade about Israel and on to Obama for his nothing comment response.

Yesterday morning I watched c-span and the callers were about 99% against Israel..it was obvious from the range of comments that a lot of pent up long simmering resentment about Israel, and the US relationship, was coming out. This tells me the public has been absorbing info about Israel all along and this particular outrage gave them the oomph to take the gloves off on not just Gaza but other aspects of Isr-merica.

No matter how this ends Israel has shot their wad with the US public and not least is even more talk about how the zionist control the US policy on Israel.

Israel is doing exactly what I said they would do...pushing the envelope till it rips. They are too stupid to quit. So are our Israeli tools in congress.

Maybe the taboo of the public calling a spade a spade is over for Israel but I fully expect Israel and congress will carry this Israel fetish on till we or someone else burns them both to the ground.

[Todd]

"I'm not exactly sure what the elite response to the shift in public opinion will be, but be sure it will be profoundly dishonest and cynical."

You took a lengthy rant and expressed it in one sentence. I like that.

[Jim Haygood]

'What I do know is the American street is enraged..they are seeing right thru the media slant this time.' - American

In the teeth of a burst, government-sponsored Bubble, all official orthodoxy is ripe for questioning. The CDO-fueled, 'home as ATM' economy was a gigantic official lie. So is the rationale for America's Israel policy, which warps its entire global foreign policy.

But it's going to take some time, as American says. The plutocratic looting continues -- in a Bernie Madoff replay, Hank Paulson just gave GMAC $5 billion which was already pledged to some other corporate thief, in the hope that both boodlers won't try to draw down their credit lines at the same time.

Similarly, Obama's Bush-carryover 'defense' team is scrambling to arrange insanely risky central Asian supply lines for Obama's 'Surge II' into Afghanistan, as the Khyber Pass has proven to be way too vulnerable to handle the immense load of materiel required to support troops in one of the most remote regions on earth.

You would think that a succession of multi-trillion-dollar military and economic eff-ups would be sufficient to demonstrate that the U.S. is for all practical purposes a 'failed state.' But no, it hasn't been. So, it will take an even bigger catastrophe to dislodge the kleptocratic 'leadership.' One hopes this will be 'merely' an economic debacle, such as a collapse of the dollar, rather than a large flash-bang which delivers radioactive fission products into the freaking atmosphere.

The gods are insane.

[rebecca999]

I hate to be a "Bible thumper", but read Revelation, and you can see what is happening today and could happen in the future. For example:

Revelation, Chapter 2, verse 9: "I know your tribulations and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but they are a Synagogue of Satan".

Revelation, Chapter 13, verse 16: "Also, it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred sixty six".

Revelation, Chapter 18, selections:
verse 2-3: "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! It has become a dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul spirit, a haunt of every foul and hateful bird; for all nations have drunk the wine of her impure passion, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich with the wealth of her wantonness."
verse 10-12: "'Alas! Alas! Thou great city, thou might city, Babylon! In one hour has thy judgment come'. And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more, cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, pearls, silk and scarlet...."

I echo Peters above, I hate what all this is doing to my once-great country, the mighty Babylon. It just makes me cry.

[John Watts]

OMG Dude, I tink you might be onto something here! Very good points indeed.

jess
www.online-privacy.se.tc

[rabbi kook]

While we are at it, what happened to the AIPAC spy case? What will Obama's men do with it?

[American]

Posted by: Todd
>>>>>>>

Amen brother.

That just about sums it all up.

[Paul]

Where was the anger in Steve Inskeep's voice? He was reserved and polite, producing the typical NPR-speak we are all accustomed to.

[steve R]

Phil was fantasizing. Inskeep was just fine to Meridor.
There's no revolution, not even a blip.
A couple dried up old ladies, some naive college kids, his Nazi followers . . . and a bunch of confuse Jews is not a movement Phil.
France, Germany, Egypt, Italy, Czech Republic, Denmark, Mexico, India, Netherlands, Canada, and The US have all told Israel to take care of business, but quickly.
Nobody. Gives. A. Fuck.

[American]

By Jim Haygood

"So, it will take an even bigger catastrophe to dislodge the kleptocratic 'leadership.' One hopes this will be 'merely' an economic debacle, such as a collapse of the dollar, rather than a large flash-bang which delivers radioactive fission products into the freaking atmosphere.
The gods are insane."

I think so too. I am of two minds on the ending.
In one the elephant is obviously down or slowing down and ripe for death by a thousand bites. The US is broke, it's power is waning, those non governmental 'actors', terriers, freedom fighters,dissent movements are expanding in countries and regions, every where you look.
The world power balance is in flux,moving very fluidly and up for grabs region by region.

Whether we wind down with a whimper or go out with a bang I think depends on the stragety, resources and mentality of all those varied groups, countries and soco/ecos splits within countries who have had enough of US empire and all it tencles.

The 'bang' is a total wild card,it only takes one crazy event. The 'whimper' ending is a sure thing if Obama governs like he is sounding.

I can't see far enough right now to put money on either but seeing as how Obama is apparently another Israeli stooge and in addition wants to send the US down the bottomless pit of Afaghanistan I am leaning toward the long, drawn out and painful whimper.

[Peter Guinta]

I'm not a fascist and I'm a Catholic, so don't label me with some religious tag that implies a bias, but why is it a crime to shoot back when someone's shooting at you? As a former Marine grunt, I was taught to bring overwhelming force against an aggressor. The criminals here bring weapons factories and firing pads into a city. Hamas wants civilians to die. The USA is not doing this. We're trying to stay out. Give this country some fairness at least.

[rabbi kook]

Hey Peter, quit being a grunt and get some education. How long should the Nakba et seq. dispossessed Pals agree to a starvation diet (Israeli characterization) before they lamely try to hit back at their oppressor? Would you hit back with overwhelming force like the Nazis did at the feeble uprising in the Warsaw ghetto?

[Ken Hoop]

The above ex-Marine, in contrast to Scott Ritter, is an output of what conservative Prof Andrew Bacevich calls the grotesque over-militarization and coarsening of American military society and culture.

[American]

@ Peter Guinta

Have you been in combat? Were you Vietnam? Did you not get your copy of US military code in boot camp?

You bring overwhelming force against the AGGRESSOR...not the cvilian population. Irregardless of what the enemy is doing.

Under US Military Law code you are required to abide by the international "Geneva War conventions, you know that thingy that the US instigated and signed and had everyone else sign long ago.

Even if given a direct order by a superior officer that violates the Geneva convention war conduct rules you can be tried in US military court for obeying that order.

We are giving the "country fairness", we are not going to condone the US government or congress's crimes...big difference there.

The military takes orders from the government but they are duty bound to the interest of the American people..don't ever forget that.

The government doesn't love you baby,it's we the people that love you.

[MM]

Hi Peter Guinta,

If, when Zionist interlopers were arriving in Palestine and beginning to clash with and terrorize its original inhabitants, if those inhabits had "brought overwhelming force against an aggressor," they would have killed Israel before it was born.

Though some wanted to, they didn't. In fact, the Arab nation states surrounding Israel hardly responded at all to the Palestinians' plight until 1948, several decades after it had begun.

To employ more of your phrasing, in any reasonable historical sense, it was the Zionists who "shot," and the Palestinians who are attempting to "shoot back".

The problem is that you are working with incomplete information, which doesn't bode well for your conclusions.

[Fred]

Look, Israel doesn't play around and never has. They have a long-held, legitimate concern that Palestinian terrorists are using Gaza as a springboard to launch attacks on Israel, and Israel has decided to aggressively react. Yes, the world is screaming about it, and yes, many people hate Israel; but the fact is that Israel has the backbone to fight an unpopular war. I admire them for it. Americans, on the other hand, seem to lack that backbone in spades.

Hopefully, when Tzivi Livni takes over as Prime Minister of Israel some time in early 2009, she will be a moderating force to help bring peace to the region. No sane person enjoys seeing innocent civilians killed in any war.

However, what concerns me more than that is the knee-jerk reaction of people who have no understanding of this conflict and are just squeamish. They are not morally attuned, they are just squeamish, weak, and easily corraled into the "appropriate" opinion by whomever is barking the loudest on TV. War has been a part of human history for years. All things considered, I'd rather support a stable, contributing democracy in that region which has made innumerable contributions to science, medicine, and the economy rather than to support folks who time and again have called for the extermination of that stable democracy.

War is ugly, but the right of a people to defend themselves merits it.

[VNJD]

NPR? The American street? It's over baby? Are you kidding?

[sd]

not in the south.. read some of the comments here

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6188257.html

[Jewish Anti-Zionist]

Not so fast. The U.S. is not going to give up its relationship with Israel THAT easily. Please remember that:

*The Holocaust provides the perfect justification for a "Jewish" state. Where "Islamic" or "racist" states get flak for being exclusive, Zionists get a free pass because there is so much collective guilt still out there for letting the Holocaust happen.

*The fact that the U.S. is so supportive of the Israel means that Israel is by far the only place in the Middle East where the PEOPLE are friendly to the U.S. and Iranian-style revolutions won't happen. That is HUGE. That means if any other Mideast country gets out of line, the U.S. can count on Israel. It can use Israel as a proxy or station its jets in Israel for bombings. Not so easy to do from Saudi Arabia nowadays!

*The U.S. doesn't get an opportunity every day to benefit so much from supporting injustice. There has to be a reason it can use. During the Cold War, the U.S. supported dictators on almost every major continent to "fight communism". After 9/11, the U.S. supported dictators in Uzbekistan and Pakistan to "fight terrorism". And Israel, well, "we love the Jewish people! We wouldn't want the lovely society they raised from the ashes to be destroyed!" So even when the atrocities Israel commits there come out, the hard edge is taken off of any protest. That will be worth continuing support to Israel until it is no longer true, which won't be for some time.

President-elect Obama!! Agent of unity, hope and change!! Why so silent on the Gaza massacres?? Now you know why.

Just as an aside, by the way -- I am Jewish, and I wouldn't touch Israel with a 10-mile-long pole. Oh yeah, now that the Jewish people are constantly at war for Palestinian land, they're really safe from another genocide, sure. They're so safe, all clustered together in ethnically exclusive communities, pissing everyone around them off. Nonsense, of course. This "Jewish state" rubbish wouldn't even exist without Uncle Sam's support (not just in money and weapons, but in the UN and international policy). It would fall apart at the seams. The "Jewish state" is totally dependent on its gentile allies, and the alliance is one of convenience. The Jews in Israel are being used as front-line pawns for United States machinations in the Middle East, and they are not safe at all.

The only way there will be peace is to ditch the exclusive "Jewish state" business and open up Israel/Palestine to being a free society without walls and divisions. This would undermine support for the destructive settler movements, which would undermine Palestinian support for Hamas's attacks. There could be a cycle of peace and reconciliation instead of violence. But this will never happen with "two states" separated by walls.

Just remember, though: the existence of the "Jewish state" and the conflict it creates benefits the U.S... So even though a one-state solution is the sensible thing, NOBODY in the U.S. will ever even think about mentioning it. It just isn't profitable enough. And that's why, folks, the U.S. won't disown Israel anytime soon at all.

[damon]

Proposal:

Israel should fire 1.5 missiles into Gaza for every one fired into Israel.

If the missiles fired into Israel were unguided and landed randomly, the missiles Israel fires back should be the same.

I use the figure 1.5 merely as an example, the UN should determine the actual "missile response multiplier factor" (MRMF), this will ensure that only the appropriate force is used in return.

[Jewish Anti-Zionist]

@Damon,

So how many Israeli homes should the Palestinians have a right to bulldoze? 1.5 times what Israel has destroyed? How many tens of thousands of homes would that be?

How many Israelis should be forcibly expelled from Israel? Since some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled in 1948, if we multiply that by a factor of 1.5, we should expel 1,075,000 Israelis, right?

Maybe we could settle 1.5 times the 500,000 illegal Israeli settlers in Palestinian communities inside Israel. Maybe they could take over half of Tel-Aviv for the "Palestinian state" in the same way Israel has eaten up Jerusalem for its own territory. After all, Tel-Aviv was once Yaffa, a wholly Arab village, before the Arabs living there were remorselessly kicked out.

People, what kind of logic is this? Don't you see in whose interest it is to keep this conflict going? Sensible Israelis and Palestinians want peace and harmony. But Uncle Sam approves, if silently, of keeping the conflict alive, and as a result, people on the other extreme like Osama bin Laden get a nice hot-button issue to use in their quest to build their own disgusting organizations. Saying that retaliation should be legitimated by the UN is supporting this stupid cycle of violence.

[Matt]

Yeah I'm neither Jewish or Arab but I think your taking a simpleton view of war. War is never proportionate and the fact that Arabs were launching rockets at Israel is enough just cause to respond with force. Israel has a right to defend itself.

[Frank Rizzo]

Either the commenters here are misinformed, or they just don't have a fairness balance to them or simply hate israel.

Fact #1. Israel is not in Gaza since at least 2006. Gazans been left to their own devices. Yet they choose to fire rockets at civilians. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7806736.stm The rockets slammed into a kindergarden and a high school.

Fact #2. Some people here mentioned the israeli blockade (e.g. starvation diet). Israel does not owe anything to Gaza and it certainly does not owe anything to people who are shooting at it. Gaza has a Egyptian border - that's who should be helping them, at least they are fellow arabs.

Fact #3. If someone takes a shotgun and fires hundreds of rounds into your house, do you wait until someone is killed or do you take care of business. Of course you do what you have to do. The current situation is not much different.

Fact #4. In weeks, months, years prior to the current conflict, did any of the posters, who so adamantly declare Israel to be the guilty party, voice concern about the never ending rocket attacks against Israel? No, I don't think any of you did. Probably didn't even know about it. So get off your high horse, get an understanding of the situation that's at least higher than massively superficial and then make comments.

[stevieb]

You've stopped at the wrong website if you think anybody is buying the nonsense you're peddling, Frank Rizzo.

Israel hasn't been in Gaza since 2006?

Really?

In fact, every single 'fact' you list - is mostly false..

Way to go, sport. I've seen some dumb post here, but that takes some beating...

[Frank Rizzo]

You are right Stevieb, Israel has withdrawn from Gaza in August 2005, not 2006 as I stated. I stand corrected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel's_unilateral_disengagement_plan

As far as saying that my other facts are mostly false... Care to actually refute them with facts, rather than just calling me names?