"What is on display is not responsibility but irresponsibility. This is the new reality in America, that those with political pull will benefit, those without will not ... Connections are replacing competence as a measure of a person's worth."

I am going to assume (because I really don't care to check) that a group this moronic and ignorant must also be hypocrites. Even if they opposed the original Bush-Pelosi-Obama bailout of Wall Street last Fall, what gives them the swollen cajones to compare our diseased, disgraced, national Red-Light District -- Wall Street -- to a young woman petitioning her government for a better public school? What scathing gall! What fantastical horror! I hope that thirty years from now, when Ty'Sheoma is president, she may be permitted by a happy mandate to collect reparations (for outrages including but not limited to slavery) from the WashTimes, the Bush family, and Rupert Murdoch. And I hope that their exasperated pleas ("This is Marxist!" or "I had nothing to do with slavery!") are met only with scorn and derision. I further hope that, after they are made penniless and helpless by unsympathetic masses, we tar and feather them and strip them of citizenship, making them Illegals in the country over which they once held merciless dominion. Finally, I hope that the children, upon bravely witnessing this awesome punishment, and upon their regrettable loss of innocence at the raw sight, inquire of their parents, "Mother, father, what did they do?" Those brave children that venture to ask, that venture to learn, will receive this solemn answer: "Children, behold. These poor bastards were the Titans of Our Second Gilded Age. They were felled from grace by Patriots. Look at them, hulking under tar, moaning and dripping sin. This, children, this plague, this is the fate of tyrants in America."

Somewhere in the middle of the posting, I asked myself, "How did the right-wing ever allow the two-state solution to become orthodoxy?" The answer is Ariel Sharon allowed it, I guess. Sharon even took steps to start the peace process, by shutting down settlements. The right-wing looks back on those steps with regret now, but the cat is out of the bag. The two-state solution remains orthodox, and there is (hopefully) nothing Netanyahu can do about that. It's true what they say about reality having a liberal bias. In Israel's case, we might amend that to say that reality has a dove-ish bias.

"Sharon did everything he could to strangle the peace process -- he was just a clever enough old bird so that strangulation appeared to most observers to be CPR."

I think whether or not Sharon was sincerely seeking peace in taking those steps is irrelevant. He did it, and by doing so shifted the debate leftward in a way that I am pretty sure was unintentional. Now, I really think Netanyahu is going to meet brick walls if he tries to shift the debate rightward again. The two-state solution is here to stay.

"[T]he rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did. The significance is the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."

Those are the ravings of a madman, and an idiot. Five or so years later, look at the results. Israel insisted that the onus for beginning the peace process was on the Palestinians. They would have to turn into Finns -- a ridiculous standard that would ensure perpetual war. Now, the Europeans and Americans are seeing the beginning of this perpetual war and they are going to put a cork on it. The debate has shifted, and Ariel Sharon was part of it (intentionally or not). But, honestly, thanks for those quotes. They're enlightening, for sure, but they don't matter.

"I hope you're right here - we shall see."

Yes, well, we're just going to have to leave it at that. I definitely understand your skepticism. It's healthy. My assessment is based less on what's happening domestically, in Israel, and more on the evolution of Western opinion, which affects Israel's foreign policy greatly. Glenn is right, the U.S. gives Israel diplomatic cover. What would normally be considered reprehensible behavior on the part of a Western democracy is excused by the world's only superpower. In order to change Israel's foreign policy, the diplomatic cover must be stripped away. I see the debate on Israel shifting toward that goal.