It's been pointed out by others but the difference in the coverage of Israel/Palestine by the US media and the media of most of the rest of the world is astonishing.

In the UK, for example (and even more so in continental Europe), you can find a range of opinion which you may or may not agree with, and which you may or may not sense represents the 'reality' of the problems of the region. But that's the point: there is range of opinion, unlike the massively pro-Israel one-sidedness that is the uniform line of the American mainstream media.

Because so many Americans are just not presented with a balanced view of what's going on in the Middle East, it's no wonder that American influence in the region is actually malign when it potentially could be a real hope - the best hope - for peace.

A number of posters have suggested that if American pundits asked tough questions of politicians then they would not be able to get them to appear on their programmes. This is not necessarily true.

Politicians in the UK media are routinely grilled, especially by the likes of Jeremy Paxman and John Humphrys on the BBC's heavyweight news programmes. The politicians might not like it but if they refused to appear, it just makes them look really bad.

There are occasional instances where the government (or company, or other public body, depending on the issue) does not muster a spokesperson and this is clearly stated in the program, for example: "We asked the government/company/whatever for a spokesperson to comment on this issue and they declined".

And, believe me, this really makes them look guilty to the viewer and therefore happens rarely.

You know, I've just been listening to a BBC Radio 4 programme which included an interview with a UN aid worker in Gaza (she was American by the sound of it) and it's enough to make you weep.

She's been in Gaza two years and never seen anything like it before: there is just so much loss of life that the hospitals, which are anyway desperately under-resourced after the blockade, are having to turn away all but the most seriously injured people. Much of the aid workers' help has had to stop because it's just too dangerous for them: the Israeli army are now attacking individual houses and not just known Hamas centres.

And do ordinary Palestinians blame Hamas for their plight? No, she replied, they blame the people who are attacking them now - Israel.

This does not sound to me anything like the story Americans are hearing from their media.

I have no faith in Bush doing anything for Israel/Palestine (except keep the pot boiling) but unfortunately I don't have much faith in Obama either.

All his statements about Israel to date have been pretty much 'Israelis right, Palestinians wrong' - as one-sided and wrong-headed as the standard American discourse on this issue.

No progress will be made until Israel changes tack, and Israel won't change, and can afford to ignore the ire of the rest of the world, all the time that the US props them up financially, diplomatically, and in the UN. This has got to change.

I'd love to be proved wrong about Obama, but I just don't see it.

This article succinctly describes the lunacy of Israeli (and American) policy towards the Palestinians: why it is barbaric, why it will never work, and the illogic of its supporters.

What's depressing about some of the responses to this article is all the 'whataboutery' that just muddies the waters and obscures the major (and legitimate) grievances of the Palestinians, namely the continuing theft of Palestinian land by Israeli settlers, and the hugely disproportionate violence visited by Israel on a largely helpless populace.

I can understand that many Israelis feel embattled, and they have every right to defend themselves, but bombing and occupying Gaza is no way to go about it and is ultimately self-defeating as Gary Kamiya has pointed out.

It's this that Israel critics object to. It's not that we're 'anti-Israel' or 'pro-Palestinian' or, as has been suggested, use it as just another excuse for beating up Israelis, but that this is as barbaric (but more devastating) than any Palestinian suicide bombing.

Israel may be the only democracy in the region, and is inspiring in many ways. But it is overwhelmingly more powerful that the Palestinians and brutal and thuggish actions like these should be condemned loud and clear by everybody, including the US establishment, much as Russia's overreaction to recent Georgian and Chechnyan violence was deplored by the US.

You can't really blame Bush for 9/11 but you can blame him for what happened afterwards.

Something like 9/11 had been brewing for many years before Bush. America - under various presidents, including Clinton - had not exactly covered itself in glory with its foreign policy, particularly towards the Arab world (Israel/Palestine). These policies acted as a recruiting sergeant for Islamic jihadists and it was inevitable that, one day, they were going to get through.

And I think Karen Greenberg is right when she talks about the damage done to America's image because of Guantanamo/Abu Ghraib/torture. This damage cannot simply be undone, even if Guantanamo closed tomorrow.

It was chilling to see an advanced democracy like the US regressing to a less civilized time where torture was permissible. This is the wrong direction to be going in.

Obama must correct this but, as Greenberg says, something nasty's been let out of the box that you can't easily stuff back in again.

The rest of the world is increasingly horrified by the carnage Israel is inflicting on trapped Gazans and is crying out for a cease fire. America, meanwhile, the only country who could realistically make Israel stop, is conveying its "unequivocal and steadfast support for Israel's right to self-defense".

Do Americans have no shame?