this guy is nothing but an apologist for Hamas and the terror-wing of the Palestinian "government".

remember, the Palestinians ELECTED Hamas knowing full well that Hamas aims to destroy Israel. this leadership then attacked and kidnapped an Israeli soldier -- an act of war.

it is the full responsibility of the Palestinian people that they are now under attack by the Israeli army. until they learn to acknowledge Jews as humans -- and Israel as a legitimate state -- they will continue to suffer

because Hamas IS a terrorist organization. Hamas is publically committed to to the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews--it's in their constitution. And the Palestinians elected them, knowing what they stood for full well. And now they're complaining because they are having to live with the consequences of that decision.

Olmert is attacking Gaza because the Palestinians have indicated that they are not really interested in negotiating with Israel. They are interested in destroying Israel. We proudly say in the US that we don't negotiate with terrorists. Why should Israel do any different?

Israel is responding to a group of people who do not want peace (the leaders) and who have been brainwashed into believing that "total victory"---pushing the Israelis into the sea---is possible and even a wonderful damn idea. Had the BILLIONS that have been poured into Palestine gone toward economic and infrastructural development, peace would already have been made. Why? Because a people with economic hope are a people who will compromise in order to hold onto the good life. But if peace were negotiated, what would happen to many of those who mae their names and fortunes on hating Israel and making absurd promises to the people? Oh, yeah, what happens to all extremists when stable democracy takes over: they are marginalized. Get it?

The people of Israel have every reason to desire peace. Israelis have built a viable economy by dint of hard work and brains. The last thing any Israeli parent wants is to have to send his or her son or daughter to the IDF for a few years. Israelis do not want war. They just want to be able to continue to exist, and if you haven't noticed, that has NEVER been a given for Israel or for the Jewish people. The fact that Israel has not been able to successfully conclude a peace treaty with the Palestinians can be attributed to the cowardice and greed of Yasser Arafat in the summer of 2000. Look it up.

These letters all make very strong, valid points, or at least coherant ones, which Cole should respond to. I wish, as well, that he would write an argument, I mean article, that tried to emody the Israeli point of view, rather than approach the matter in the defensive victimized way he does. This particular argument was so gross and misleading. The minimizing of the quassam rockets, especially.

Why am I not surprised that Israeli apologists immediately crawl out of the woodwork to chant the usual drivel about Israel and its alleged desire for peace? This latest in a long line of attrocities committed by Israel against the indigenous population of Palestine, proves that the great Israeli writer Tanya Reinhart got it right when she wrote that the lesson that many Israeli's and their supporters had internalised from the holocaust is that any lesser crime is acceptable. It doesn't matter what Israel does, its fanatical supporters will find some way to justify it. Israel destroys the power supply in Gaza, an obvious assault on the civilian population, but hey, that's okay, because Israel wants peace. They abduct elected officials, but hey that's okay. Israel wants peace. They fire missiles in civilian neighbourhoods and kill far more Palestinians than have been killed by Palestinians, but hey, Israel wants peace.

As Gideon Levy wrote in Ha'aretz:

"A black flag hangs over the "rolling" operation in Gaza. The more the operation "rolls," the darker the flag becomes. The "summer rains" we are showering on Gaza are not only pointless, but are first and foremost blatantly illegitimate. It is not legitimate to cut off 750,000 people from electricity. It is not legitimate to call on 20,000 people to run from their homes and turn their towns into ghost towns. It is not legitimate to penetrate Syria's airspace. It is not legitimate to kidnap half a government and a quarter of a parliament......The legitimate basis for the IDF's operation was stripped away the moment it began. It's no accident that nobody mentions the day before the attack on the Kerem Shalom fort, when the IDF kidnapped two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from their home in Gaza. The difference between us and them? We kidnapped civilians and they captured a soldier, we are a state and they are a terror organization. How ridiculously pathetic Amos Gilad sounds when he says that the capture of Shalit was "illegitimate and illegal," unlike when the IDF grabs civilians from their homes. How can a senior official in the defense ministry claim that "the head of the snake" is in Damascus, when the IDF uses the exact same methods? "

It doesn't matter what scholars like Professor Cole write. It doesn't matter what Israeli critics say, it doesn't matter what the descent opinion of the world is. Israel's apologists will find some way of justifying anything and everything. I expect to wake up one morning and see that Israel has begun the final ethnic cleansing of the land it covets and then sit down to watch the likes of Alan Dershowitz and Israel's foolish supporters accusing people of Antisemitism for daring to point out that Israel's behaviour is simply barbarous.

Funny how these "apologist for terror" arguments end up sounding like the talk of colonialists from the British in Kenya to the French in Algeria to the Americans in Vietnam.

Occupation, especially of the kind like Israel's that appears designed for maximum humiliation (sonic booms, checkpoints, knocking out power plants), creates a pretty horrible anti-thesis of fanaticism and murder. This is not good but it has always, always been true.

The idea that the big issue is just waiting for a "good partner" to hand power over to becomes laughable after decades of waiting and killing.

Israel's situation is particularly frustrating because the Palestinians are on the verge of actually creating such a "partner": Hamas is being domesticized through the political process; Barghouti has worked tirelessly from behind bars to rally Palestinian prisoners from all parties to agree, in essence, to a two-state solution; and there is a real weariness in the occupied terrotories toward conflict.

It takes a confident leader, someone, alas, like Rabin, to deal with a confident partner who has sorted out his own issues and is ready to come to the table. Israel has no such leaders.

So, the process of a dying colony will continue. The colonized will continue to be divided and painted as wild and full of hate, while the colonizer will kidnap, bomb and harrass with respect (at least from the States) because of his neatly pressed uniform. No one will come closer to a real solution--for either party--until everything truly falls apart.

Cole is right on target.