Let's say a terrorist was in a mall, would the police be allowed to blow up the mall killing hundreds of civilians? Would we call this terrorism? (probably we would).

Having said that I don't accept the analogy that Israel is the "police". It simply is a criminal state created through the ethnic cleansing of another people. It has always relied on extreme violence to pursue its goals.

BTW even though it is irrelevant to this discussion, I would like to point out the Zionists' terrorism started long before Hamas came into existence. Yad Vashem is built over what used to be the peaceful Palestinian village of Deir Yassin whose inhabitants were brutally murdered by the Irgun terrorist gang in 1948 (the same terrorist gang that Rahm Emmanuel's father was a member of). This massacre, as Menachem Begin pointed out, was engineered to cause the Palestinian Arabs to flee (thus creating a "pure" Jewish state).

Israel supporters in their rallies try to justify the murder of Palestinian civilians. Anyone who wants peace should call for the brutal attack on Gaza to stop.

More and more people of conscience, including many Jews, all over the world are with me. While US politicians are still scared shitless of the Israel Lobby, and many Americans are confused by the pro-Israel media, more and more American are starting to see Israel for the apartheid murderous state it is.

Desmund Tutu who talked at length about Israel's apartheid is one of them. The reservists who refused to serve so as not to take part in war crimes is another. Jews who refuse to be bystanders while the killing goes on in Gaza are among them too (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/13/letters-israel-rally-gaza).

You're on the wrong side of history. Like fascism and apartheid, Zionism - at least the brand of extreme violence you advocate - is destined for the dustbin of history.

Everybody is allowed to defend themselves. What we are not allowed to do is murder and injure thousands of civilians, including children, while claiming self-defense. I guess you don't get this because these people are not Jews which makes them non-persons to you.

"Rovera [Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty investigator in Israel] has also collected evidence that the Israeli army holds Palestinian families prisoner in their own homes as human shields. "It's standard practice for Israeli soldiers to go into a house, lock up the family in a room on the ground floor and use the rest of the house as a military base, as a sniper's position. That is the absolute textbook case of human shields.

"It has been practised by the Israeli army for many years and they are doing it again in Gaza now," she said."

- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/13/gaza-israel-war-crimes

None of Israel's claims about Palestinian factions using their own civilians as human shields have been corroborated by human rights organizations or foreign media (which is prohibited by Israel from going into Gaza so as they won't see what's going on there). Yet Israel continues to cynically use these claims to justify the wholesale slaughter of civilians.

The world according to Zionists:

- West Bank colonies are to be expanded constantly. Palestinian land and water resources can be stolen and given to people coming from anywhere else as long as they are Jewish.

- Palestinians have to keep passive about it. Otherwise they are terrorists (even if all they do is throw a stone at the colonists stealing their land or protest peacefully like at Bil'in).

- Palestinians are to be confined in fenced-in areas that keep on shrinking.

- The Israeli army and armed settlers have the right to go into Palestinian areas and kill at will using lethal force that typically exceed whatever provocation the Palestinians may have committed by many orders of magnitude. If innocents are killed it must be the fault of the terrorists (either that or there are no innocents because all Palestinians are terrorists). This is called self defense.

- Naturally the rest of the world has to continue to support Israel (or a least keep silent). Otherwise, they are anti-semites.

- Anyone who doesn't agree is a terrorist sympathizer or worst!

Israel's stopping the expansion of settlements can help reduce tensions, and therefore help move towards a solution by showing Israeli goodwill in the eyes of moderate Palestinians

- Jonathan in Tel Aviv

So the settlements which are illegal under international law, which deprive the Palestinians from their land and livelihood and which imprison them in areas bounded by for-Jews-only roads are not really a problem. But stopping them might "help move toward a solution"!

Don't you people find it distasteful to talk about pretty Israeli women when your brave soldiers are engaged in murdering Palestinian children in Gaza? I guess you don't care as long as the victims are not Jewish.

Then after all, I am sure Germans busied themselves occasionally with how pretty their women were during the Nazi era with the same level of detachment!

I have family in Gaza. They are civilians who have never been involved with (or liked) Hamas. They have been terrorized by your army of murderers. My brothers' 4-year old son is so terrified that he is constantly crying in his sleep. I know all about the context and history of this latest massacre of civilians and about the nature of your apartheid state you stupid propagandist.