First of all, I'm an American of Irish descent, so your pronouns are a little off.

You just don't get it, and apparently never will. Now, Israel has used up its 9 lives of oppression, blockading, harassing, and lying about it.

Did the Gazans use up any of their lives shelling and bombing Israel, or is there just one side to the whole thing, and Israel is the great Satan? Maybe I do need to catch up.

Bottom line. Killing innocent civilians is not an option.

Based on the rockets coming out of Gaza, going straight for Sderot, it seems to be an option Hamas is willing to consider.

Oppression, harassment, blockading, extorting land from farmers, and preventing normal commerce does NOT constitute a "cease fire". The fact that you could have prevented Hamas from gaining a foothold in the first place, and that you didn't use the insane levels of money that you take from us to prevent Hamas rise in power, is telling on you.

Every nation reserves the right to control its borders, and even to build a fence along them if they so choose. Doesn't Gaza share a border with Egypt? I'm confused as to why the Egyptians are blockading and starving the Palestinians.

You are losing support every day, and you still don't get it. This stubborn, arrogant, violent, dishonest and infuriating behavior comes with a cost.

You know what else has an associated cost? Sitting back and letting the rockets hit.

The Israeli left is tough and macho too. Neat. That's great and swell and all, but every civilian killed in Palestine will lead to dead Americans in the future.

But who cares about Americans? The Government of Israel doesn't, it's lobby doesn't. Israel's moles in our media military industrial complex don't care. No matter that America is who ultimately gets blamed for enabling Israel, and that our enabling of Israeli war crimes will lead to retaliation, further resentment and undermining of what are supposedly American values, and increasing numbers of dead Americans. In fact, the American Government doesn't care about Americans either, for it is the American people that will suffer the consequences, not political elites that oh so politely justify barbarism while having civilized discussions about over steak dinners.

All that matters is Israel, that looks tough, and that Zionists feel good. Timothy McVeigh cited Waco and Ruby Ridge as justifications for the OKC bombing. OBL cited American support for Israel (and the rest of the failed states we support in the region) as a justification for 9/11. Then we gave AQ and friends a gift beyond their wildest dreams, the invasion of Iraq. Israel, by its actions, and America, through its support of failed states that oppress Muslims, are the best recruiting tools AQ could ever ask for.

While Israel shows its toughness, AQ gathers propaganda for recruitment videos and radicalizes more pissed off Muslims, "see, look, the west is not what it claims to be."

used to be a good offense.

But with crowded cities, cheap rockets, and terror groups, the best defense is a dead enemy.

Don't mind Renegade Iconoclast, he doesn't care about American citizens, alive or dead, he only cares about Israel. When you mention blowback all he can think about are the poor Israelis being shelled by evil terrorists. Never once does it cross his mind that American support for this atrocity could lead to dead Americans in the form of terrorist retaliation. He doesn't care.

But when they do retaliate, we'll here him and the apologists lusting war for, asking the question, "what did we ever do to them?".

Hamas refused to continue the ceasefire. The people of Gaza/West Bank knew exactly what they wanted, which was to fire missiles and continue attacking Israel. And they knew retaliation was going to happen. They relied on comments like many expressed here, full of fury at the side defending itself. As an American, I support the lone democracy in the region. As a person who wants peace, I'm tired of thugs pretending to be a legitimate political force. If the radicals refuse to negotiate, all civilized people should push them into negotiations or punish them when they go on murderous sprees.

I sympathize greatly with the Israeli people, surrounded by enemies and judged more harshly than those who have vowed to wipe them off the map.

The Gazans are scared.

But with crowded cities, cheap rockets, and terror groups, the best defense is a dead enemy.

And don't forget dead allies, i.e. dead American citizens, which is what your warmongering rhetoric is ultimately going to lead to. But what do you care about America and its genuine national interests? Nothing. Just like all the other apologists you could care less about radical Muslims committing atrocities in the US and killing Americans, as long as American militarism gives your precious Israel carte blanche to do whatever it wants.

There is something striking about Benn's conclusion:

"Alas, the war has also shown that there is no credible way to stop rockets, as Hamas has launched them deeper into Israeli territory than ever before. At this backdrop, it will be difficult to build public support for a West Bank withdrawal. Israelis will be even more reluctant to expose Tel Aviv and the Ben Gurion airport to the possibility of rocket fire from the West Bank. The new American president will have to work hard to overcome this fear. Otherwise, Israelis will still find it easier to go to war than to wage peace."

This suggests that a two state solution is never going to work: even if Israelis were somehow convinced to allow a Palestinian state, what would stop Palestinians from hurling rockets across the border from the West Bank? And what would stop Israel from responding with exactly the same kind of invasion it is inflicting on Gaza today?

A two state solution was not a solution for Gaza, and it won't be a solution for the rest of Palestine.

There is only one solution, and that is integration. When people see each other everyday as equals, not as distant subhuman vermin, they find it hard to kill each other. Separation of Palestine from Israel is the exact opposite of what is needed. What is needed is a single state that treats Arabs and Jews as equals. Until the "peace process" takes that as a goal, we can forget about peace in the region.