From poster SunnyAfternoon:

A sad day for mankind when a tiny, racist, violent, hard core, and influential minority manages to lead hundreds of millions of supposedly free citizens of a democratic country by the nose.

But God forbid anyone bring up how these threads devolve into anti-Jewish hatefests. That would be unpossible! This is all just simple, objective criticism of a foreign nation because of a deep rooted and benevolent love for the people of Palestine.

You people have such pure motives at heart. Your untethered rage at Israel and rabid conspiracy theories of American Jewish puppet-masters with their banking and media control, is all simply the necessary evil that leads you to what you've always cared about: The welfare of the people of Palestine.

Really, truly, I'm touched by your deep love for the people of Palestine. Because I'm sure that's all that motivates you.

And Glenn. His deep love for the suffering of the Palestinians. It's noble and altruistic. And not simply an excuse to rant away pathologically at the illigitimacy of a country that bothers him for reasons so complex, he can't acknowledge them coherently without complete cognitive meltdown.

No, what's truly sad is that people seem to think if Israel only "gives peace a chance," it will result in more security and safety for the people of Israel than the current outbreak of destruction.

Glenn actually argues that since Israel made peace with Egypt and Syria, it can do so with a Hamas-led Palestine.

It's as if the 1990s didn't happen around here. As if Israel didn't bend over backwards to give the Palestinians sovereignty, a police force, land, infrastructure and money.

It's as if the Second Intifada didn't happen to Israel for nearly two years as a result of offering the Palestinians a path to peace.

But now, when Israel commits aggressive violence, some of it deplorable, people on this board decry how dare Israel not "give peace a chance.

Were you people f-cking sleeping through the 1990s?

Which makes Israel safer, lowering checkpoints and offering Palestinians land and resources (1990s)? Or blowing the crap out of them?

I'm not defending the morality of this invasion of Gaza, in many ways it's morally indefensible, but what I am defending are the basic facts of the past 15 years -- when Israel tries to negotiate and offer peace to the Palestinians, they're greeted with nailbombs on their busses.

This tragic war on Hamas is disgusting. But it will also likely work, in the strict national sense of preventing more attacks. Given how Palestinians have made their decisions the past twenty years, I'm not sure what options Israel has left.

Oh right, the United Nations. Glenn cites them as a Sober, Serious objective source. I forgot about the United Nations. Good thing they've always been fair towards Israel.

Maybe we can see if Mel Gibson's father could chair a committee.

I agree with you, there appears to be serious war crimes on the part of Israel's recklessness. But when Glenn unleashes his rants, he obscures so many legitimate points of critique that the entire issue devolves into anti-Israel rants and Jewish conspiracy theories involving AIPAC and the "money-lenders."

The legitimate points are this:

Israel should be roundly criticized for not letting journalists into Gaza. Israel should also be held accountable for apparently reckless bombing campaigns that have slaughtered innocent Palestinians and children. Israel must provide evidence for these bombings as Hamas targets.

What gets lost in the rants on this board are the following basic facts:

* Israel does have the right to defend itself. The question here is one of proportionality and response.

* Hamas does use civilians and schools as human shields for their mortar fire. To automatically assume Israel is just "targeting civilians" without waiting to learn more about whether Hamas was firing mortars and rockets from these locations is wilfully ignorant.

* Hamas is a terrorist organization.

The United States accidentally slaughtered innocents targeting Al Qaeda and other terrorists long before George W. Bush drove us off a cliff in Iraq. Bill Clinton killed innocents in Yemen and Afghanistan trying to get Bin Laden. But when America does it, it's a "necessary cost in pursuing terrorism." When Israel does it, it's "TEH WAR CRIMES!"

Our actions in Iraq 2003-2009 are about 50,000 times more egregious in terms of human rights violations, slaughtering innocents and unjustifiably starting a war than anything Israel is doing in Gaza responding to mortar fire.

Yet the outrage discrepancy is unbelievable.

If Glenn posts a diary on American war crimes in Iraq, it gets maybe 50-100 posts. If he posts on Israel, there's a freaking meltdown of Americans frothing with rage at the *temerity* of the Israelis.

This is the embodiment of pathology. There's a reason I/P discussions turn into emotional tornadoes, and it has to do with the uniqueness of Jewry in the world as pariah, demon, pathological "other."

Glenn wants to treat Israel "just like every other country," showing the cognitive inability to perceive his own biases and passions, which bleed through every one of his rants.

The "love" for the suffering Palestinians is as much a fraud here as it is in Egypt, Syria or in an Osama Bin Laden tape. You people excoriating Israel on this board care as much about the Palestinians as does the Arab world, which is to say you don't. They're just the convenient pawns to hang your pre-determined philosophies on.