You are a source of endless ignorant bullshit. The checkpoints are actually manned mostly by reservists and not regular army, and the reservist are quite older and if anything, even more racist than the youngsters you ignorantly claimed are manning the checkpoints. Does the fact that statistically, one out of many thousands of Palestinians might be foolish enough to try and go through a checkpoint with an explosive belt justify the humiliating of an entire population? For your information, the suicide bombers manage to sneak into Israel away from the checkpoints and the reason they have stopped is due to the security fence, not the checkpoints, another thing you are ignorant of. Your ignorance of the situation is stunning and embarrassing. Why would you comment on an issue you zero about?

The image of Israel in the USA public as a benign democracy, surrounded by blood thirsty wild Arabs is probably the greatest hoax ever, brilliantly perpetuated by the relentless Israeli propaganda machine, aided by the laughably shallow and gullible US corporate owned media. A vhronicle of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, from the massacres and ethnic cleansing of the 1948 war of independence and through the 41 years of occupation will easily reveal that Israel's conduct is much closer to the Waffen-SS and the notorious apartheid state security police, than to anything remotely acceptable in the West. The profound anti-Arab racism in Israel is also an unmentionable in the US. Of course, if the US public realized the depth of the Israeli racism, the explanation for the total disregard for the Gazan civilians in the current operation would become obvious. Just a small example:IDF soldiers manning the infamous West Bank check-points refer among themselves to the Arabs they process as "djukim", a Hebrew vernacular that means cockroaches.

Senate Democrats are meek and scared of their own shadow even when they win elections. They won Florida in 2000, but were too frightened to actually fight for it when that victory was being stolen from them. They unseat a neocon in Minnesota, but are too scared to seat him. Why doesn't Reid just offer his Republican counterpart the majority leader position and be done with it?

The rise of Hamas is a result of Israels behavior. Even if Israel was to kill every Hamas man, unless Israels behavior is changed, Hamas will rise again. This is a part of the price that Israel must pay for avoiding peace all these years and decades. Instead, Israel has chosen to expand west bank settlements. Israel has made a conscious and deliberate decision to take this path and it has led to the present hostilities, which have long been predicted. Israel is not deserving of any sympathy in these circumstances. Quite the opposite.

"So long as Israel is a lone beacon of democracy and equality (for it's citizens, at least) in a region overrun with misogynistic, anti-democratic, 19th century nations I think most Americans will identify and sympathize with Israel."

Yes, the Arab regimes are feudal and mostly theocratic, I have nothing good to say about any regime in the Arab world. However, where did you get the fallacy that Israel is a "beacon" of equality for all its citizens. Citizens who aren't Jewish, particularly Israeli Arabs, are victims of systemic discriminations. Compare schools, roads and all other infrastructure in the Arab sector to the Jewish sector and you'll realize immediately how baseless, fact-less and ignorant your claim is. For example, when an Arab challenges a Jewish person in an Israeli civil court, the Arab chances of receiving a favorable ruling are about the same as mine winning the California lottery.

It's hard to believe that your a medical doctor, given your cruelty, racism and blind chauvinism. If you are indeed a medical doctor, the only one you resemble is Dr. Mengele.

Israel is refusing to commit to end the Gaza blockade even if Hamas agrees to a ease fire and an end to rocket attacks. This is waht's behind it all. Israel has been using the blockade in order to make life in Gaza so intolerable that the misery would cause Gazans to kick Hamas out.

The Israeli blockade of Gaza is an act of war, so is the firing rockets into Israel. The Israeli air attacks and ground invasion are acts of war, so is the Hamas retaliation. Israel's targeting of civilians is an act of war and a war crime, so is the indiscriminate firing of Hamas rockets at Israeli towns. Hamas is a terror organization, Israel is a terrorist state. It's a wash-there are no good guys in this conflict. Israel is not morally superior to Hamas in any way, nor is Hamas morally superior to israel, they are both very very bad actors in a terrible tragedy.

is a neocon. Neocons are opposed to serving in the military as a matter of principle. Neither she, nor any member of her family, will never join any military, but she and her ilk are instinctively blood thirsty and will let others fight and kill till their last drop of blood. It's also called the Bill Kristol Syndrome(BKS).

The Gaza strip area is 139 sqm. Its 1.5 million residents are actually crammed into a much smaller areas, mostly incredibly densely populated refugee camps. The Gaza strip can actually be likened to a few sardine cans piled on top of one another. Shelling or attacking Gaza from the air is similar to throwing a hand grenade into a small room crammed with dozens of people where heavy casualties are guaranteed. Because of its great density, any military attack on Gaza will kill civilians even if the attackers don't actually want to kill civilians, and the terrorist state of Israel certainly had no intention of sparing the Gaza civilians, fondly referred to by Israeli soldiers and civilians as "djukim" in the Hebrew vernacular, meaning cockroaches.