"...but about repairing reputations -- and erasing the stain of failure."

and diverting attention from the almost 1000 civilians they just blasted away?

Ya know, I'm about as sick of Israel as I am of every other damn country over in the Middle East. The paranoid, over-reactionary bullshit is getting old. We expect this crap from the Hamas' of the world. Not from "enlightened" nations.

Think we've had it wrong about Israel for a long, long time. Actually, what can you say about allies that spy on their friends?

See, when you complain about Likud using the charge of anti semitism to suppress dissent and then go and say that jews are as responsible for their holocaust as the Nazis you don't do much to advance your credibility. I thought you might not be serious, but I guess you are.

Israel does not fight wars. War implies battles between equals. Israel fights only weaker "enemies," usually to steal their land. It "crushes," employs an "iron fist," and uses other Gestapo-like actions against "lessers" it's already weakened. It is a nation of pampered, powerful, pretentious punks.

>> 1 Dead Jew in, say, Canoga Park or Brussels - for every dead Palestinian.

> I take it you're volunteering to shoot them, Herr Fuhrer?

His point was that Israel does what it does because, like WWII Germany, it thinks itself superior... militarily and morally. It forgets that its victims WILL find ways to fight back. Arabs would be fools to use tactics that put them at a disadvantage.

Suicide bombers, I'm sure, would prefer going mana-o-mano against equally-armed Israelis. The chickenshite IDF won't let that happen (Look how quickly they turned tail in Lebanon!). It only attacks when it thinks it can win. So why should its victims abide by Queensberry Rules when Israel doesn't?

As for suicide bombings, Americans have always volunteered for missions they knew they'd never come back from. We think them honorable. Why, then, call Arabs ignoble for doing the same?

As for "terrorists" targeting civilians, the IDF that kills kids today merely repeats the tactics of the Stern Gang and others Jewish thugs during Israel's hellacious founding. They terrorized the "enemy" by killing civilians.

So again: Why shouldn't Jews around the world be targeted?

A child's family is killed by IDF cluster bombs. He saw the whole world watch and do nothing. so why wouldn't he want to kill a Jewish family in turn? He can't reach one in Israel, but he CAN in another country. Think he won't? He's seen the glee the IDF takes when killing Gaza's civilians.

Israel forever yammers about representing all Jews and Judaism. Pampered and US-protected, its IDF Caligulas wax rhapsodic when recounting its killing of Arabs. It makes them feel better about failures... like Nazi camp guards playing "Pin The Bayonet Tail On Jewish Donkeys."

Why wouldn't "subhuman" Arabs, given the chance for payback, take it?

Israel says it's more moral than any other country, then whines when its myriad failings are pointed out.

Time to disappear, Israel. Go the way of other rogue states.

I try to help folks whenever I can. However, I don't like to pass sad folks begging for money who act angry when I say I don't have money. They impose on my space, then get irate when I want to be left alone. I now handle their rudeness this way: When someone asks, "Spare change?" I say, "No thanks. I'm all set."

They usually don't know what to say.

Similarly, whenever I criticize Israel (which happens ever-more frequently these days) and someone says, "You're an anti-semite!" I respond: "And Israel is a peace-loving country. There, we both lied. Happy now?"

Other times I will say, "Thanks."

They're usually speechless, too.

The point is, being called an antisemite is becoming almost an honor. It means you're calling Israel on its arrogant brutality.

Pro-Israel overkill (both literally and propaganda-wise) is beginning to backfire. Soon we will have "Boycott Israel!" and "Israel Uber Alles!" and "Free Gaza" tee shirts. Maybe even an "Anti-Nazism then, Anti-semitism today" graphic. Use your imagination.

how few readers here support Israel's latest blood-fest, even as just about every one of our national political figures that you can name spouts the same old line of unqualified support for Israel. "They is jes potectin' theyselves, folks, and they gots ever right to bomb them schools. Little kids are some real bad terrorists, and that's a fact!"

It's time to start leading our elected officials in a new direction. It's time to stop the insanity.

"Israel left Gaza 3 years ago and gave them approximately 6,800 chances (the number of rockets and mortars fired into Israel since) to kiss and make up."

Just like the Wehrmacht "left" the Warsaw ghetto and gave Jews "6 million" chances to get with the pogrom, er, program, too.

Israel moved settlers from Gaza to the West Bank.

It then sealed Gaza's borders.

It starved the Gazan population, killed commerce, uprooted trees, bombed power plants, "bravely" made raids dressed as Arabs to kill Hamas members during the truce, flew jets and drones to keep the Palestinians under surveillance and sleepless, etc. In short, Israel acted as humanely as Germans did to Warsaw Jews.

"Hamas shelled the very powerplant that Israel uses to deliver 65% of the electricity to Gaza"

Israel bombed the plant Palestinians had run themselves. It wanted to profit from the misery it caused. Like the soldier who robbed ghetto Jews, making them pay for German clothes.

"Hamas has murdered hundreds of their fellow Palestinians in back alley political violence"

Jews murdered their own kids at Masada...in broad daylight!

They also led each to concentration camps, then into gas chambers. They sold each other out for bread. And volunteered to drag out chamber dead to pull gold teeth. So who are Israelis to judge anyone? With the 4th most powerful army in the world and the mindless/endless support of the world's lone super power, they've chosen to be ugly and inhumane brutes.

So, what's new?

Freed from Egypt by Yaweh, they resorted to idolatry, and were forced to wander the desert for 40 years. Such are those who hold themselves up to the world as exemplars.

The danger Israel never considers is that the more horrifically it acts, the more likely it is people will wonder if Goebbels wasn't right. They will ask how a people spared Holocaust death could form a country that acted as evilly as German propagandist said they would.

Israelis claim to be more moral than others due to Jews' historical suffering. Then they get angry when the world holds them to the higher standard they claim to abide by while acting worse than Cossacks,

Germany was able to do what it did because it also controlled media. Today, Israel's actions are broadcast to the world despite Israel banning reporters. Moreover, the Internet allows Youtube access for those who might not see Al-Jazeera, etc.

Americans are tired of war. They will soon face an ever-more troubling economy. They aren't going to want to give money to a country that prefers war to peace. Look for China and Russia to help Syria and Iran and outmaneuver America. Then we'll see how tough Israel talks.

What happens if/when Russia sends a warship to deliver aid to Palestinians? What happens when China gives Hamas missiles, becoming heroes to millions of Muslim tired of being abused and humiliated? What happens when Israel gets boycotted and becomes one huge ghetto?