I don't know who is more vile: a Jew who would deny the very existence of Palestinians, or an advocate for Palestinians who would intentionally (and, of course, wildly inaccurately) appropriate the word "Holocaust" to poke a stick in the eyes of Jews everywhere.

I know this much, though: neither one does his cause a goddamn bit of good.

Sorry about the scatological perversion of your screen name. As a father of twin babies, I have a lot of occasion to think about poop.

Well, I'll be darned -- I had no idea.

And yet, Klein's glorious career continues apace, as yours has, and as Traub's undoubtedly will. Doesn't that undercut your suggestion earlier in this thread that public deviation from the AIPAC line requires incredible bravery in view of the dire consequences thereof?

that he opposes any investigation of who kissed the girls and made them cry.

I certainly don't see the "relevance to this discussion" of anything that Irving Kristol allegedly said 36 years ago.

Perhaps you'll explain.

>>>All players in both countries who had anything to do with torture or war crimes need to be held accountable. And that's not an anti-Semitic or anti-America position--it's a humanist rule of law one.

Yes and no. I do not doubt that the Israeli military committed war crimes in Gaza (nor can it be disputed that Hamas committed war crimes against Israel), but how and by whom shall Israel's alleged war criminals be "held accountable"?

Ideally, Israel would conduct a fearless and searching investigation of its own conduct and punish all wrongdoers appropriately, but that's about as likely as the US (or Hamas) doing the same, right?

And while your own humanistic, rule-of-law motivations are above reproach, I tend to be suspicious of international bodies where Israel is concerned. I think their deliberations are often corrupted by the numerical and economic clout of Arab/Muslim nations whose views of Israel are (to put it mildly) less than objective, and by that peculiar historical phenomenon the name of which I dare not say, but which does have a name, and that name rhymes with "shanty-femitism."

>>>Any European country would do under the principle of universal jurisdication... you get accountability in the worldwide public consciousness via bringing the charges publically accompanied by public evidence and trials in absentia....

So some European country with its own history of unpunished crimes would take heart-wrenching testimony from a few Gazans and then issue a declaration that Israel is Teh Evil. No, thanks.

(If there is any place where Jews have always gotten a fair shake, it's Europe...)

What you describe is a PR campaign. It has nothing to do with justice, accountability, or the rule of law.

>>>...Nice WinSmith argument--

Now that's just mean. I am wounded. :-)

>>>because Europe was bad to the Jews in the past they can never be entrusted to give the Jews a fair shake now or in the future.

Well, the future is a long time. But yeah, here in the present, the notion of Jews being tried in absentia in European courts does give me a wee bit o' the shivers. Sorry about that.

>>>when has the world forgiven itself and the Jews forgiven the world enough so that it no longer is fair to point to the past treatment of the Jews as a rationalization for everything and anything.

Not sure what you mean by "everything and anything." I thought we were talking about Europeans trying alleged Israeli war criminals in absentia.

>>>Because God knows it wouldn't be fair to take the testimony of neutral humanitarian observers as well as Gazans as well is Israeli's themselves to come to a conclusion about the moral rightness of bombing Gaza to rubble.

Obviously, Israel would not submit to the jurisdiction of your European-country-to-be-named-later, so there wouldn't be any Israeli testimony. And when did a "conclusion about the moral rightness of bombing Gaza to rubble" become the subject? I thought we were talking about criminal prosecutions under color of law. Everyone knows Israel bombed Gaza to rubble, and everyone with an opinion about the morality or immorality of Israel's actions is free to express it (and has).

>>>You people, for the most part, do yourselves a real disservice by not reading more from the other side of the spectrum.

But we do, we do. We have read their columns insisting that Iraq was chock-full of terrifying WMD, that anyone who opposed the Iraq War was a terror-loving traitor, that Al Gore was a liar and George Bush a truth-teller, that John Kerry was a sissy and Bush a he-man warrior, that the Katrina victims brought it on themselves, and that everyone right-wingers don't like is Hitler. We've read it all, trust me. And we know it's horse manure.

I was amused by your recommendation of the "civilized" National Review. During the civil rights era, NR passionately defended segregation, attacked the civil rights movement as violent and Communist-controlled, bitterly criticized the Brown v. Board of Education decision, endorsed laws preventing African-Americans from voting, lavished praise on the South African apartheid system, and asserted that the Birmingham church bombings were the work of Communist saboteurs and/or "crazed Negroes."

But they were very civilized about it.

"Lots of opposition" to GW Bush in National Review?

Comedy gold, sir. Comedy gold.

I don't read NR regularly anymore, but if anyone there ever criticized Bush on Iraq (beyond demanding that we kill even more of the bloody wogs)... well, I'd have to be shown some examples to believe it. I do remember the glorious "We're Winning" cover story ... how many deaths ago was that?

If I were a betting man, I would wager that Glenn Greenwald has criticized Obama more often and more substantively between February and September of 2009 than all the folks at NR (combined) criticized Bush throughout his presidency.