Once again, and contrary to the manner in which his campaign is portrayed in the MSM, Obama's position on the substance of policy is more thoughtful, more informed and more sensible than the position of his opponents. Instead of a succession of empty, meaningless platitudes about Israel, Obama puts a clear position based on substantial analysis. Against this background, the media portrayal of him as lacking substance and reliant upon mere "words" demonstrates unforgivable ignorance. Why do they persist? At a guess, I would say that researching Obama requires the average non-pj clad correspondent to read and evaluate actual data. By contrast, the McCain position simply requires a tape recorder and microsoft word.

Your analogy between Palestinian attacks on Israel and Iraqi attacks on US forces is profoundly flawed, because most anti-American attacks in Iraq are directed at the occupying force, within the borders of the occupied country. This is legitimate resistance to an occupation. Palestinian attacks against Israel are generally directed to civilians, usually within Israel itself. This is terrorism and murder.

Only a valid argument if you concede that Israeli attacks that kill civilians on Palestinian territory are terrorism and murder.

But if you want Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians to cease then give the Palestinians some decent tanks, a few Apache helicopter gunships and a squadron of fully armed F-16s. Until they have the means to defend themselves from the air and ground attacks that the Israelis mount against them at will, then attacking soft targets is their only means of response to the 40+ year occupation of their land.

And you seem to forget that the purpose of the occupation of Iraq is so that the US armed forces will be attacked. Haven't you heard the slogan that we're fighting them over there so we won't have to fight them over here. Bush has staked out 140,000+ US troops in the desert and declared open season on them ("bring 'em on").

That brings up another question... why hasn't Charlie Rose had Glenn on his show? He likes to think he's on the cutting edge... no? Certainly Glenn should qualify. If anything, his work is more like the "bleeding" edge.

-- Anonymust

I wonder if you saw Charlie Rose when he had Thomas Friedman on his show. I've seen it. I have about 2 on a scale of 10 respect for Charlie Rose since I witnessed that spectacle.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5750722555540659594

I put this out here before because I was hoping someone would comment on it. So, here it goes one last time. This is a great article that describes how Obama, a progressive community organizer with pro-Palestinian sentiments becomes a solid supporter of Israel, right or wrong, once he is a candidate for the prez. Its an interesting ground up perspective, invaluable for judging Obama, I thought...

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6619.shtml

Thanks for the commondreams link to the Chomsky post. I glossed over it earlier today, went back and read it just now.

Damn.

Killed this morning in an Israeli air strike in Gaza.

If only the Palestinians would accept their fate and just stop resisting, like the American indians eventually did. Unfortunately the advent of Cold War, the development of Semtex, The RPG-7 and the AK-47 made that rather unlikely. Throw in a little religious zeal and fanaticism, mix with nationalist fervor and you have a real problem. You think you are the cowboys and they are the indians.

Let me make sure I have this straight. Following your logic and your Iraq/Palestine analogy, if an Iraqi man came to the U.S. and grenaded a church service or blew up an elementary school, you wouldn't call that unjustified, because the U.S. has brutally and unlawfully occupied Iraq. The moral calculus would be too complex for you to unreservedly condemn his action. Right?

I can't speak for Glenn but I can speak for myself. My answer is "YES."

I commented on the topic last light when I made some mention of "those pesky voters".

While the Convetional wisdom as expressed within Washington is frequently behind the actual public sentiment there are nevertheless certain things that are reliable.

As I said, no one is going to succeed in politics running on a pro-drug pro-pornography platform. Likewise, no one is going to succeed running on an anti-Israel platform. The best we can hope for is evenhandedness.

This is why I'm so fond of the fun-house mirror analogy. The more energy one spends on recounting all the evil inherent in one's enemies, the less available for any sort of self-reflection.

The mirror so distorts things that people fail to realize that they are viewing themselves.

You’ve violated one of the 2 rules about mid-east politics while mentioning only one of them.

1. The US media rule: Never criticize Israel; if you do you’re an anti-Semite (in the common usage of using the term “Semite” to apply only to Jews and not Arabs). This rule applies to about 90% or more of all debates about Israel within the US

Lesser known, of course is Rule 2:

2. The liberal blog/International rule: Never criticize Palestinians; if you do you’re pro-genocide. This rule applies to liberal blogs only; you can get away with it pretty much anywhere else in the US. Outside the US, this rule will apply.

The worst thing about these rules is that they pretty much insure that there will never be a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine despite it being in both parties’ best interests.

In the eyes of their supporters, both can do no wrong. Those on the Palestinian side will claim that Israel is violating international law by building settlements and applying collective punishment. On this they are correct. Both actions should be stopped and only continue because Israel knows it has a virtual veto on the Security Council in the form of the US. The problem with this is fairly obvious. When Israel continued to build and expand settlements in the West Bank during Oslo, they pretty much doomed the peace talks. Of course, nobody in the US outside of the Arab community and peace movements dared mention this. To do so pretty much doomed you to irrelevance and revulsion. So, the settlements continued to expand despite even most Israelis turning on the settlers. The outcome was predictable and led to the second Intifada.

To best understand the problem with giving the Palestinians a free ride, you have to understand what the pro-Likud types say when arguing against giving up the West Bank and Gaza. “If you give them any land, they’ll use it to attack Israel and nobody will have a problem with it until Israel responds”. The Palestinian leadership has done a great job of proving them right. From the bomb making factories in Jenin (despite having any arms in a refugee camp being a violation of international law for obvious reasons) to failing to disarm militants, the PA had long realized that nobody outside of the US and Israel will raise an eyebrow about any of it. To even mention Palestinian violations of Oslo and international law is somehow construed as justifying every terrible thing Israel does. From this, Israel’s peace movement becomes marginalized as they look like suckers. So, Israel builds walls and continues to make the Palestinians life miserable.

Of course, the UN is no help. Israel was roundly condemned for violating the cease fire agreement for launching a raid into Lebanon. While deserved, the fact that the resolution had no teeth, combined with the fact that nobody at the UN seemed to have any problem with Syria rearming Hezbollah simply sent two messages. To the Palestinians, it was yet another example if Israel getting off with a slap on the wrist for violating international law. To the Israelis, it was another reminder than nobody will hold the other side to its agreements. The real losers are the Lebanese as in a few years Hezbollah will pick the wrong time to launch a cross-border raid and Israel will respond by flattening Lebanon again. This seems to be perfectly fine with Israel and Syria, but I’m sure the Lebanese would disagree

I’m glad to see the Israelis are willing to talk to Hamas. It shows they’re smarter than their supporters. But, if Hamas agrees to a truce and the rockets keep flying, will anybody bother to make them get whoever is doing it to stop? If not, Israel will return fire, Palestinians will die and the peace movement gets pushed back another 10 years, again. Will Israel realize than yet not agreeing to give up all of the West Bank doesn’t give them a green light to do whatever they want there? If not, eventually the Palestinians will launch another Intifada, Palestinians and Israelis will die and the peace movement get’s pushed back another 10 years, again.

I can’t say I’m optimistic about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Threads like this hardly make me feel any better.