I don't understand the rush to antisemitism. Do you believe that anyone who criticizes Israel is antisemtic or full of vile hatred towards Jews?

Of course not. I critize Israel all the time and have done so in these threads. I think it's outrageous that journalists were not let into Gaza, and the bombings of the U.N. seem indefensible at this point.

However let me ask you something. Do you think anti-Semitism is a derrangement that seeks out facts and cover-stories to float its age old conspiracy theories?

Do you really believe Osama Bin Laden gives a shit about the Palestinians? Or Israel a useful tool for Arab theocracies to direct the rage of their people against the age-old most convenient "Other" at work behind the scenes controlling world governments?

Glenn buys into the same nonsense that racists like David Duke do. But this is nothing new to history.

Critiquing Israel, as many on the left are rightly doing, is of course legitimate. Glenn, however, launches weird theories about American politicians somehow being "controlled" or "fearful" to speak out the truth (as GG sees it). He hints at AIPAC pulling the strings of our government, as if the Christianist zealots would somehow come to their "senses" and reject Israel if not for covert money funding.

If you removed AIPAC tomorrow, the Bushies would still have a "kill all Arabs" mentality. If you removed Israel off the map tomorrow, the Neo-Cons would find new ways to justify killing Arabs, just as anti-Semites on the left would find new ways of accusing Jews of secretly manipulating ther American government.

Israel is the convenient excuse, just as the suffering of the Palestinians allow Glenn to float his pre-determined arguments under guise of caring about the poor children of Palestine. Even the most basic scholar of history has seen this pattern a hundred times before, and each time, people like Glenn think they just invented the wheel based on the "facts."

I suspect we disagree about what happened in Gaza, and about the Arab-Israeli conflict more broadly- for example, I agree with Glenn that our media with few exceptions puts an Israeli frame of reference on the developments in Israel and Gaza and the West Bank- but I take it we can agree that some sort of peace process based resolution is the best thing for all sides at this point.

I have no idea what happened in Gaza, but unlike so many in here, I'm not willing to proclaim "TEH WAR CRIMES!" until more facts come in.

Did Hamas fire from civilian locations to provoke Israeli response? Or did Israel indiscriminately bomb civilian areas where they knew no Hamas were located?

The truth is that none of us are certain about these facts. These incidents just went down a few weeks ago. Only agenda-laden propaganists like Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky can speak with certainty to events they did not witness nor have been fully investigated by impartial observers.

I think the Palestinians are horribly suffering, and Israel has shown little tolerance for this fact in recent years. I also remember the Second Intifada, and realize that the existential threat to Israel's ability to function as a country remains as valid a threat as ever.

Simply adding up body counts is moronic in light of the past ten years. Nearly 600 Israeli civilians were killed 2001-2004 by nail bombs on streets and on buses (not that Glenn Greenwald noticed).

The Palestinians had their moment when Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and they elected Hamas (not that Glenn Greenwald noticed).

To simply discuss the events of the past few months without context is to betray obvious agenda. Of course Israel looks monstrous right now. There are over a thousand dead Palestinians. Some of these deaths may be war crimes. Israel's refusal to let journalists and medical services in during the military action is inexcusable.

Unlike GG, I see the Obama administration as remarkably different in policy than the braindead Bush/Condi paralysis, for the simple fact that America has to get involved and be a broker for peace and the two state solution.

America must help Gaza rebuild and help aid reach the people of Palestine immediately, for they are suffering under inhuman conditions.

Israel cannot make peace on its own. America must play its role, and like we did under the Clinton years, I expect Obama to play an evenhanded role that the Bushies never bothered with.

I asked you once before and you didn't answer. You've frequently written that you've posted diaries at Kos. Under what name?

I'll give you one guess.

This is what I think of when I see Win and Jonathan appear:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056648.html

Israel recruits 'army of bloggers' to combat anti-Zionist Web sites

By Cnaan Liphshiz

The Immigrant Absorption Ministry announced on Sunday it was setting up an "army of bloggers," to be made up of Israelis who speak a second language, to represent Israel in "anti-Zionist blogs" in English, French, Spanish and German.

Yes, you got me. I'm part of the grand international Zionist conspiracy and am secretly funded by Israel. I'm not an American born in Virginia who campaigns and works for the democratic party and spoke out against Bush, the invasion of Iraq, and the shredding of our Constitution.

I must be part of that secret media conspiracy you've heard so much about.

That's your idea of a viable country? One which the US should support? Why, Winsmith, can't the Jews make peace? Is there something about my religion I don't know?

Clearly there's a lot about your religion that you don't know.