I don't see an independent Palestinian state developing anytime soon. Plus there is no real gut desire out there for one on either side despite the public policy statements to the contrary. If one is established it will merely be an appendage of the greater Israel. It is a case of tokenism at its worst...merely to soothe the diginity of Palestinian refugees and lefty intellectual around the world.

The reality is that the level of mistrust between Arabs and Jews is simply too great today to bridge and all the work done in the 1990's to build trust is now gone. Another whole generation of citizens will have to be born to replace the current status quo.

The last generation of terrorists, the PLO, made headlines from the 1970s - 2000 but their objectives were political, even military. Everyone sort of understood where they were coming from although their methods were, at times, brutal like blowing up airplanes, Munich, etc. They were also secularists and did not give a whit about the return of the Caliphate, Islamic law, etc. After 40 years of fighting in the shadows they earned some level of international recognition for their cause and they found themselves at Camp David, Madrid, Oslo, a UN seat and other symbols of legitimacy. Now the terrorists are primarily religious driven and really don't care about political solutions and negotiated settlements. They think in terms of martyrdom with 71 virgins awaiting them, drinking wine and eating pork for all eternity. Why should they care about legitimacy in this world when eternal reward awaits them if they can somehow take bullet from an Israeli. Israel is facing an irrational enemy that that has no worldly objectives other than achieving their own destruction.

Far Lefties like Greenwald and Kamiya are always so very predictable. When it suits their lefty worldview, they ignore the fact that all governments have the responsibility to provide basic defense of its citizens. According to their view, Israel should just sit back and take it "up the arse" and hope that Hamas and Hezbollah come to their senses, meet in Geneva and solve the Israeli-Palestinian question, once and for all (time). Not in my lifetime nor in your lifetime is this going to happen.

I have a deep distrust for writers like these guys because what they want is for good people to do nothing while evil triumphs all around them. My only conclusion is that Kamiya and Greenwald must be purveyors of evil as well. Why else would they be so intent on aiding and abetting killers like Hamas and Hezbollah?

Where am I wrong?

Hamas baited Israel to start this war by lobbing missiles into Israeli towns killing 4 citizens. Israel is taking the bait and the chips will fall where they will. Probably 1500 people will die of which 500 will be children before all this ends at exactly 12:00PM EST Jan 20. Hamas is quite ecstatic that it sacrificed 1500 of its citizens to achieve a "ceasefire", which it had in-place 30 days ago and let it expire. This whole thing is surreal yet the worldwide media, including Glenn, refuses to call Hamas what they are: a terrorist organization bent on the destruction of Israel by any means necessary including the cynical manipulation of the leftward drift of the mainstream media.

Glenn is more than happy to carry the water for Hamas.

Obama knows better than most what will happen if there is a terrorist attack of any magnitude under his watch, particularly following any significant deviations from the Bush national security priorities, ... he is toast! He cannot abandon the Bush policies wholesale in the first 100 days because he will be politically exposed if there are "issues". The Left is screaming for wholesale changes and Obama will throw the Left a carrot by "outlawing waterboarding and/or renditions" on Jan 20th. That's easy to do, gets big political kudos, but relatively minor in terms of national security. However, (i) don't expect Gitmo to close anytime soon (ii) wiretaps will continue with maybe some oversight (iii) Obama will like the idea of declaring victory in Iraq so he doubles the troops in Afghanistan (iv) all-out effort to capture/kill OBL using Predators or CIA incursions into Pakistan (v) agrees to sabotage Iran's efforts to get WMD's versus sneak attack (v) pays lip-service to the Palestinians but offers no real alternative to Hamas because he wants troops in Afghanistan not Gaza.

Sounds like a Bushie to me.

What else am I missing?

Israel knows that when the bombing stops, the female suicide bombers begin their work in Israel. There is no great hurry to stop the bombing.

I see Jan 20th as the last day of the bombing.