What is your point?

They're all irreconcilable nutcases because you have a clip of some propaganda?

I guess it's fair game to judge a whole people or culture by the actions of a minority now?

But these are "adults".

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Thank you for your comments. I get the impression though that even if the parties are close in policy on Palestinians, that it's the more RW elements that enforce political orthodoxy here in the US through AIPAC and elsewhere. Yes?

No, it's not at all fair to judge a whole people or culture by the actions of a minority. Glenn was talking about Hamas, and that's their TV station, so I suppose it reflects their views. Hamas certainly doesn't reflect every Palestinian or Muslim, that would be an absurd claim. Nor am I really saying that Hamas isn't to be negotiated with, but merely that Condi's assessment of them as a terrorist group is obviously fair. Perhaps they're a terrorist group that has to be negotiated with because they represent a majority of Palestinians, but they're terrorists all the same.

Everyone should always negotiate. Period.

If I was a neo-con thug, I'd want to negotiate, if only to derive some intel from the other side - and on the off-chance of finding a purchase point for exploitation. This is another example of modern conservatism's utter (and ridiculous) level of incompetence at everything... except, of course, further enriching the accounts of the inherited wealthy. Non-negotiation is not the principled stand; it's an bullying method to stay one's self-serving course.

I firmly believe that negotiation eventually yields something of value - perhaps incrementally and in barely observable quanta - on the journey towards more peace and shared prosperity.

In negotiations (including selecting negotiation partners) as in Special Operations it's best to remind our selves that Perfect is the Enemy of Good.

PS-Very nice to 'see' ya again, beth.

Isn't there enough real substance to talk about without going to extreme lengths to find offense?

My point was ... did I need to diagram it? - that one will never encounter a dearth of extreme attitudes coming from both sides of a contentious issue such as this, and that the real struggle is between the extremists on both sides and their respective moderate counterparts. I didn't bring the (seriously loaded) word vermin into the discussion.

The Manichean framing of the issue is just as much the 'substance' of the discussion as anything else. Maybe more...

That's wrong actually.

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.

So what does that mean in the end?

So what does that mean in the end?

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.

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

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...

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.