"Hard to imagine a clearer expression of warlike intent than kicking out the peacekeepers..."

How about actually attacking, like Israel did? Egypt had every right to kick out the UN Peacekeepers. It was Egyptian territory, and, more importantly, the peacekeepers were there to enforce a ceasefire resulting from an unjustified attack by Israel in 1956.

I have no interest in creating a mythical anti-Israel narrative, especially because it isn't necessary. Israel has been the aggressor in many (but not all) of its wars, managing to depict them all--as you do--as pre-emptive attacks. Somehow whatever bellicosity that Israel trumped up to attack becomes the actual first strike. I don't understand the logic, here.

I won't pretend that I can debate the content of the decision or the legal particulars. My own bone:

I just don't understand why anyone, gay or straight, would want to be associated with this barnacled and hypocritical institution. Marriage, is at heart, a religeous institution, it has no real civil analogue. There is no concept of marriage in any culture that is not sanctioned by God. It seemed for a while that in the seventies and eighties that we were realizing just how useless this institution was for men and women, gay and straight, and there was a broad consensus of replacing marraige with civil unions for everyone. That also seemed to be where the gravity of the gay movement seemed to be as well.

I just don't understand where the sudden fire to call partners husbands and wives came from.

I suspect this is sarcasm, but the frequency is too high. Please include "lol" at the end or a colon-left parenth next time. If Glenn is guilty of any fault in reasoning on this issue, its in the assumption that kids learn anything in seventh grade.

You said:

"It's a republic not a democracy" line is consistently used to undermine the democratic principles of our country in the first place and in the second as a naked and simplistic argument against the Democratic party. After all, if it's a republic, we should all be Republicans."

I am a Palestinian (Colombian) American who lived in Palestine from 2000 to 2002. When I tried to return in 2004 to visit my family in the West Bank, I was arrested at the airport in Tel Aviv, interrogated by a multitude of agencies for about 16 hours, held in custody for another 8 and summarily deported. One of my cellmates was an elderly Palestinian, who was a naturalized US citizen. He had been in detention for over a week while an Israeli attorney fought for his right to entry. He was visiting his parents, both in their nineties and ill. He had failed and was about to be deported--apparently, he would never see his parents again. I called my own consul, who said there was nothing he was willing to do for me--not even to make sure that I was repatriated to the US, instead of France, my point of origin as far as Irael was concerned.

Had it not been for one of the security personnell there, who obviously was embarrassed about his country's treatment of Palestinians, I would have been deported to France. I would have landed in France with no way home, and unable to afford the several thousand dollars it would have cost to fly back to California. Only his timely intervention saved me from that fate.

At the time, I wrote a letter to the Ask the Pilot column in Salon, to tell my story, and he seemed positive about printing it. Although the author was running stories about airport security, mine never appeared.

While I commisserate with Finkelstein, this kind of thing happens to Palestinian-Americans on a regular basis and no one seems to give two #$#^$.

I wrote the following post earlier, in which I queried why no one gave a shit when these kinds of things happen to Palestinian. My question remains, considering that no one commented on my experience, which was at least as horrendous as that of Finkelstien:

If only this kind of thing were news when it happens to Palestinians

I am a Palestinian (Colombian) American who lived in Palestine from 2000 to 2002. When I tried to return in 2004 to visit my family in the West Bank, I was arrested at the airport in Tel Aviv, interrogated by a multitude of agencies for about 16 hours, held in custody for another 8 and summarily deported. One of my cellmates was an elderly Palestinian, who was a naturalized US citizen. He had been in detention for over a week while an Israeli attorney fought for his right to entry. He was visiting his parents, both in their nineties and ill. He had failed and was about to be deported--apparently, he would never see his parents again. I called my own consul, who said there was nothing he was willing to do for me--not even to make sure that I was repatriated to the US, instead of France, my point of origin as far as Irael was concerned.

Had it not been for one of the security personnell there, who obviously was embarrassed about his country's treatment of Palestinians, I would have been deported to France. I would have landed in France with no way home, and unable to afford the several thousand dollars it would have cost to fly back to California. Only his timely intervention saved me from that fate.

At the time, I wrote a letter to the Ask the Pilot column in Salon, to tell my story, and he seemed positive about printing it. Although the author was running stories about airport security, mine never appeared.

While I commisserate with Finkelstein, this kind of thing happens to Palestinian-Americans on a regular basis and no one seems to give two #$#^$.