And your assertion that all people are basically the same? That's true. But some of us are the chosen people.

Back atcha

It's interesting to note that the Bush administration did not anticipate that the ability to vote would make Palestinians democratically elect Hamas. I think Condi was on the treadmill one morning when she found that one out. Guess the Bushies can't get to work early or to bed late with that election in the Mideast happening, must have been another slam dunk.

One cannot promote democracy and remain credible when the election does not spit out the result you anticipated. Evenhanded diplomacy is difficult since one's ideological needs are not always fulfilled in the real world. Are some leaders more democratically elected than others, to paraphrase Orwell?

It's like the "rule of law" sloganeering that happens when it's illegal immigrants qualifying for possible amnesty, but that's simply forgotten when it's corporations who donate. We support elections when we approve of the winners.

Israelis know they need to make a deal, and that the less the finger can be pointed at them, the better. Practical people know that draining the swamp of terrorism means getting a functioning economy and state working for these people, who've lived for decades in refugee camps and should finally be able to have leaders pressured to produce viable societal solutions instead of this Jew-hating nonsense. The real way to pressure Hamas is to let them lead their new nation somewhere without being able to point the finger at Israel as the reason for the problems in their territories.

Asking a war-cheerleader to put down the word "terrorist" is like asking an NRA mmeber to put down his rifle.

It's their most potent weapon.

It won't be happening anytime soon.

Didn't mean to tweak your stalk. ;-> Just expressing concern.

Thanks for the Thoreau, and thanks to Jkalos for expanding on it.

Sorry to be further OT, but I just posted a followup to the last thread, and want to post part of it here so it will be seen:

Many thanks for the host of responses and concern

Not sure if this will be seen, but wanted to let others know that I read everything and appreciated the responses I got after I succumbed to exhaustion last night. Yesterday was not a good day, the anniversary of the horror I shared, so my posts were definitely more testy than needed. So, apologies where warranted.

There's a bit more over there if anyone wants specifics.

I learn a lot from reading Glenn, and even more from those who post here. It is all appreciated. Now back to lurking and learning on the topic at hand...

Glenn, your post today was, as usual, fabulous. I don’t know why a Mainstream Media (MSM) source has not yet picked you to be a writer for them. Their loss.

Israel is at the heart of what’s wrong with the political discourse in this country. Instead of a real discussion of the issues, as happens in the state of Israel, we have been treated to a one-sided (extreme right-wing) discourse, where any hint of an even-handed discussion leaves one branded as “anti-Israel,” or “anti-Semite,” or worse.

This country supported the formation of the State of Israel, and has blindly backed their increasingly self-destructive behavior. Witness the history of Israel since the Camp David accord: hundreds of settlements, and thousands of additional “occupiers” of Palestinian land. While I firmly back the existence of the State of Israel, I do not back the deliberate “destruction” of the agreed-to framework for long-term peace by the additional settlements in the West Bank and other areas.

If we don’t reverse course, Israel will become the site of the start of WWIII, where the entire world will be annihilated, or at least subject to nuclear winter, as a result of the many nuclear bombs that will be launched in response to Israel’s unilateral bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites. This is an issue that will come to a head very soon, especially if it appears that the Democrats will likely retake the Presidency and increase their numbers in Congress.

I used to think Labour governments were able to get away with things Likud governments never could... that was before the last Sharon government.

In general, though, either government seems to be pretty well to the right of the people, much like some other Western democracy I know...

Interesting point about the lamposts.

Unfortunately, since Israel has a habit of bombing the Paletinian power plants (Oops, sorry. I meant "alleged bomb making facilites"), and generally controls most imports (including fuel) into the region, electricity for those lights is not something that they can count on.

Continued Israeli agression? They can count on that.

And to the writer above who insists on terroist label: The difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is that the freedom fighter is on our payroll. Israel is on ours, and so we can only see the black and white of it.

TO move forward, we must lose these labels

Israel has tried to live up to all it's agreements, with limited success.

They could start with living up to the UN charter as they are a signatory and it makes annexing territory illegal as well as the geneva conventions which forbid collective punishments.

So what does that mean in the end?

So what does that mean in the end?

PLO and Yasser Arafat in the 1970's? They killed Israelis too but, in the end, Rabin, Barak, and even Ariel Sharon sat down with them and talked because there was no alternative but constant war.

And do you know how much of the Oslo Accords the Palestinian Authority has lived up to? Zip. Zero. Nada. Israel has tried to live up to all it's agreements, with limited success.

Here's an interesting illustration. The Washington Post recently did an article about the Kasam rockets that routinely get fired from Gaza into Sderot. You know what they make the rocket casings from ? The aluminum lamp posts the Israelis installed in Gaza when they controlled it. Hamas' hatred of Israel is so great, they would rather live in darkness if it means killing Jews. That is the perfect metaphor for their mindset. And I'm not a neocon (a notoriously undefined term around here anyway); I'm simply a realist.

The Palestinian cartoon with the bunny (a previous incarnation feature a Mickey Mouse character) is illustrative. Their hatred is so pathological, they will poison the minds of children to live it out.

I repeat. You cannot negotiate with this mindset. It may stall for time by "negotiating," but in the end it cannot be placated.