Negotiations are not necessarily the way forward for Israel/Palestine. Israel is not Egypt, it has no military and no economy--nothing with which to bring to the table. Israel does not necessarily want 'peace' with Palestnians and their negotiations have historically been in bad faith. I said this in another post, but repeat it here: the last great negotiation, the Oslo Accord, was nothing more than a smoke screen for Israeli consolidation of its West Bank hegemony. The settler population doubled, settlements continued to be built, and the accord laid out a matrix of population control in the West Bank that was unprecedented. The Intifada was a direct result of Oslo, not a circumstance of fate.

Meant to say "Palestine is not Egypt"

I know you're heart was in the right place, but that was an unfortunately patronizing metaphor.

Hoping to get some kind of sorely needed dialogue on it. Its not just Likud. Right wing, left wing paradigms cannot simply be overlayed on Israel. As early as 1967, Labor came up with a plan to take control over the West Bank land, while giving population control over to some other body. Back then it was Jordan and this was called the Allon Plan. In the nineties it was the Palestinian Authority and it was called Oslo.

During Oslo, the Labor party doubled settlement population, and cantonized the West Bank using Israeli only access roads, non-autonomous regions and checkpoints. The injustices from Labor's stewardship of the so-called peace process led to the Intifada, and the first year or so of Israel's inhuman response to mostly unarmed demonstrations was managed by the Labor party. Likud, is certainly more reactionary in rhetoric, but there are few real political differences towards Palestine.

That's wrong actually.

Thanks Glenn. I also couldn't believe that Russert would attach rejection of anti-semitism to unconditional support of Israel. Nice one. But what was the most unctious act of the evening, was Clinton's upping of the "rejection" ante. Her pro-Israel stance has always hued to the Lieberman wing of mindlessness in the Democratic party, as has John Kerry...and yes, well, any Democrat who has pretty much ever had to mention the word Israel in public.

I would like to point out that it is heartening to see the admittedly feeble attempts at Obama to break with this cycle. However, I would point to comments such as this in Ha aretz just a week ago:

"My view is that the United States' special relationship with Israel obligates us to be helpful to them in the search for credible partners with whom they can make peace, while also supporting Israel in defending itself against enemies sworn to its destruction,"

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/826665.html

This is a boiler plate democratic statement, passed down as heirloom from progressive candidate to candidate. Obama gave a pass to Israel on its killing of 1,000 Lebanese in 2006, and continues to do so

"I don't think there is any nation that would not have reacted the way Israel did after two soldiers had been snatched. I support Israel's response to take some action in protecting themselves." also from Ha aretz.

That invasion left millions of unexploded bomblets from cluster bombs in Lebanon that continue to maim and kill. This is truly disgusting.

Did anyone catch this little nugget in the New York Times "World Briefing" today?

"Gaza: Israeli Army Clears Itself in 21 Deaths."

Apparently, Israel investigated itself and found that it was not to blame in the deaths of 21 Palestinian civilians caused when an Israeli shell hit residential buildings in Gaza. I would add that this number is greater than the total number of Israelis killed in Katyusha rocket attacks in six years.