Jesse Covner writes: "The things you are talking about are about how Israel treats people in the Palestinian territories...not Israelis."

This is a very strange dichotomy. If "Israel" the nation is not composed of a collection of "Israelis" then everybody is absolved of responsibility for the equivalent of Palestinian apartheid, right? Seems like a big, fat rationalization to me.

"What has Egypt done for America? We give them almost as much money."

This is an inaccurate statement. Even if you go by what's on the books, we give Israel nearly twice as much financial aid as we give Egypt. Egypt gets roughly $2 billion a year while Israel gets roughly $4 billion. Then there are the interest-free loans, and the quiet forgivenesses of those loans, which are in effect a form of back-door aid away from the scrutiny of the public. Add in the military and material aid. Now add in the $30 billion, 10-year defense deal that was just brokered this week between the U.S. and Isarel. U.S. aid to Israel is vastly more substantial than to Egypt or to any other country of a comparable size.

"So what should they have done when Hezbollah was attacking civilian targets and kidnapping soldiers? Really... what should they have done..."

Look more closely at what really happened. The attack on Lebanon was planned months before any soldiers were kidnapped. Documentation and testimony now reveal that Israel wanted an excuse to attack Lebanon and used the kidnapping of the soldiers as an excuse for the attack. In fact there is good reason to believe that Israel was purposely provoking militias on the Lebanese border in order to escalate a small conflict into war. Further evidence suggests that the U.S. backed the Israeli/Lebanon war because Israel was using attack methods that would become a testing ground for a possible air war against Iran. (Note: There is a great deal of conflicting testimony as to whether the captured soldiers were in Lebanese territory when they were captured.)

If you think Israel's war against Lebanon was in any way an appropriate response to the kidnapping of two soldiers, then you have to face the fact that the war was a failure by several measures. For one, the soldiers were not returned. If Israel really wanted those soldiers back they would have privately negotiated with Hezbollah and secretly released some of the thousands of Hezbollah-related prisoners being held in Israel for many years. It is not like Israel has not done such things in the past.

But the Israel/Lebanese war was also a failure in that instead of destabilizing Hezbollah, it gave them a way to claim victory and increased their public stature in Lebanon. Common Lebanese citizens who were wary of Hezbollah came to see them as brave warriors who stood up to the Israeli machine, a symbolic arm of the U.S. Israel's international stature was diminished when it created a massive environmental disaster. Much of the Israeli public's perception of the war was that it was pointless, and politically the leadership lost much of their clout. Israel threw everything it had at Lebanon, most of whose citizens were innocent bystanders, and for what? To "teach Lebanon a lesson" for allowing Hezbollah to exist (not that it had much say in the matter)?

"Please don't say that they can just start up a diplomatic effort when Hezbollah is firing rockets into Israel. Be realistic."

Diplomatic efforts are happening all the time, even during war. The people who are fighting are often in communication while they fight. Throughout the Cold War the U.S. was in direct communication with the Soviets. Right now the U.S. is in direct negotiation with many of the militias who are blowing up their servicemen in Iraq. So I have no idea what your point is.

"Corruption and cronyism is far more prevalent in Palestine and Lebanon than in Israel."

...your point being? And how do you quantify such a thing? One form of Israeli corruption I am referring to is their kangaroo court system that systematically creates a double-standard for property rights depending on whether a person is Israeli or Palestinian. A Palestinian who attempts to get the permits to build a home or claim land rights will not receive the judicial treatment that an Israeli settler does. The entire Israeli court system is rigged so that this is the case. Go read up on this process and get back to me.

"It may even be more common in the USA than in Israel."

On what basis are you making this claim? What difference does it make if Israel is relatively less corrupt than some other country? Does that absolve them of responsibility for the corruption that does exist?

"And democracy does not just mean that the citizens of the country have a right to vote. It means there are institutions where in people can come together to work out difference through defined processes in a representational manner."

Please show me where Israeli has lived up to this definition in Jerusalem, West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights, or any other disputed territory, when it comes to the Palestinians' abilities to achieve self-determination on their own land. Israel has abused the entire notion of "occupation" and reinterpreted it to mean "free-for-all land grabbing." There is no way to get around this.

Israel will claim land for a security buffer, then build settlements right up to the edge of that land, and use those settlements to justify grabbing additional land for an even deeper security buffer. They'll do this repeatedly until they've taken several miles more land than they originally claimed they needed for security.