Did you go to school to learn to be such a condescending p___k, or does it just come naturally?

Both.

As to your assertion that I care nothing for my fellow Americans, I'm not surprised that you have to resort to ad-hominem arguments to make your point, it's the first resort of imbeciles. (See? I can do it too! Yay! Are we done with that now?)

Yet you still won't confirm or deny your contempt for American citizens when it comes to supporting Israel. Typical.

I will respond to your accusation, however, but perhaps not in the way you were expecting.

Assuming for the sake of argument that an action is justified, and rightful,

Making an argument based on a false premise, good one. Your assumption is false because 100% American support for all things Israel is neither justified nor "rightful".

Should we censor all artists so that we don't get attacked, as well? Perhaps we should form an official Muslim censorship beaurau, and run everything by them first, to make sure that it won't offend any terrorists.

What a ridiculous argument. All you have argued is that it is worth it for American citizens to bleed and die defending the actions of the Israeli Government. Doing otherwise would be "cowardly".

When settlement construction will stop

And for how much longer

This yearly game

Of occupation

Hopscotch?

If the point of this slaughter is simply to make Israelis feel better about themselves, I suspect they are in for a severe disappointment. There is simply no way that they can stop Hamas from firing rockets, and Hamas will keep on firing the rockets.

They can't stop the rockets, because Hamas is getting a good chunk of the components, and the RPGs, not through tunnels to Egypt, but from the Israeli mafia, which is pilfering them from the IDF. But the IDF has had precious little success with stopping that.

And Hamas isn't going to stop, because the rockets give them legitimacy as the only group doing something, anything, against Israel, and every wounded or killed Palestinian just gives Hamas another 4 or 5 Palestinian votes.

They also aren't going to stop firing the rockets because the rockets are working; as long as Israel continues to feel insecure and dangerous, it is going to have trouble attracting new immigrants, and more importantly, retaining the ones they already have. Sderot has a lot of new immigrants from Russian, and the emigration rates of those Russian-Israelis is high and growing-- ie, Hamas is successfully accelerating the demographic time bomb.

In this light, the Israeli attack is pretty much a Hamas wet-dream. And for sure, it isn't likely, in the long term, to make Israel feel better. Indeed, it is going to make Israel feel worse, which is Hamas' whole intent.

I believe that what binds the two countries together is an unwaivering belief in the effeciveness of military action, in spite of all evidence to the contrary and its often objective failure.

Wrong. What binds the two countries together are political pressure and campaign contributions from American Jewry. And before the "anti-semite trump card" gets played: The truth isn't antisemitic, it is what it is, the truth.

When we say, "assuming for the sake of argument," in a discussion, it means we're making an analogy. It is in fact your framing of the issue is dishonest, because you can't prove that lack of support for Israel has kept any country safe, or that it will keep ours safe.

The point is that giving in to a terrorist's demands, merely because you fear your physical safety, is cowardly, and is certainly not a justification for anything at all. You apparently believe that Israel is completely in the wrong. You're not alone in that opinion, and I myself am more conflicted than you seem to think, much as you'd like to paint me with your war monger brush.

That you feel Israel is wrong is plenty justification enough for not supporting their government. Vague fear of reprisal by terrorists is not.

It is in fact your framing of the issue is dishonest, because you can't prove that lack of support for Israel has kept any country safe, or that it will keep ours safe.

Maybe you should go back and read what OBL said about the reasons for carrying out 9/11? Or would that be "giving in to terrorists" since they hate us for our short skirts and presidential elections, and not because of our interventions in their world?

But like I said, you seem to think that terrorists killing Americans and pointing to the US Government's 100% unflinching support of Israel as justification is worth it because it makes us "tough", and not committing generations of Americans to fight other peoples' religious wars is "cowardly".

Maybe you should go back and read what OBL said about the reasons for carrying out 9/11? Or would that be "giving in to terrorists" since they hate us for our short skirts and presidential elections, and not because of our interventions in their world?

Yes, you're right, we should give in to all of Osama's demands while we're at it! Perfect plan, why didn't I think of it?

Did it ever occur to you that Osama might just have another demand, after we just do this teensy-little favor for him?

But like I said, you seem to think that terrorists killing Americans and pointing to the US Government's 100% unflinching support of Israel as justification is worth it because it makes us "tough", and not committing generations of Americans to fight other peoples' religious wars is "cowardly".

That's not the only thing they point to, and you're a liar again for framing it that way. You know as well as I do that terrorists also regularly call for the USA to install Islamic rule (including Osama). Should we do that too? It might keep us safer!

Israel & PLO helped create Hamas by their inability to negotiate a peace or stick to negotiated peace. Hamas was elected by the people of Palestine, yet they are still called terrorist. This has been going on for decades. Maybe everyone should leave them to thier own devises, and cut off all aide and supples to both countries.