Cook and Moore were comic geniuses. Stanley Donen's film "Bedazzzled" is to my mind the most brilliant British comedy ever made. Thanks for sharing that I enjoyed it.

"I'm actually quite interested in your opinions. I don't see how Israel imagines that an air attack and a ground assault will permanently stop attacks on southern Israel."

I happen to agree with you on this, as my other posts make clear, and thanks for your interest.

I am only here to respond to those who excuse anything and everything the Palestinians might do, and condemn anything and everything Israelis do...

Yesterday, this is exactly what you accused Greenwald of doing. When asked to produce any evidence of your claim, you failed to do so. Now you are again making the same claim, without offering any basis for it.

You've shown me clearly that your comments here are not in good faith. You are either fooling yourself or attempting to fool others. I frankly don't care which is true. I'm done with you and your comments.

Yesterday, this is exactly what you accused Greenwald of doing. When asked to produce any evidence of your claim, you failed to do so. Now you are again making the same claim, without offering any basis for it.

I did produce the evidence, you just didn't read it.

I'm done with you and your comments.

Thank God.

Any time NPR reports on this issue, it's idea of even-handedness is the mickey mouse version where a report of a Palestinian death is balanced by the report of an Isreali death, without any mention that hundreds more are dieing in Palestine. It is as if the network is saying, with regard to this issue we are not reporters but rather tightrope walkers. We can't afford to upset any of our wealthy Jewish patrons.

Palestinians send their children into Israeli schools, busses, restaurants, and supermarkets with bombs strapped to their bodies to kill as many innocent men, women, and children as they possibly can. After the suicide bomber completes their mission of wanton murder of dozens of people the Palestinians dance in the streets and pass out candy celebrating.

Palestinians fire hundreds of rockets into Israeli villages and towns trying to murder as many innocent people as possible and when Israel responds Israel is called the aggressor. The aggressors are the people who have murdered thousands of innocents here on 911, in India, Iraq, Israel, England, Spain, Fiji, The Philippines and six different Moslem countries all in the name of Islam against Jews and Christians. The aggressor is not the nation of Israel, a country the size of New Jersey. It is the Palestinians and Moslems who teach their children, from the time they are born, to hate Jews and Christians.

Have people forgotten that Israel withdrew every settler and every soldier from Gaza three years ago? What did they get in return? Six thousand rockets fired at their civilians the past three years. Let a terrorist group take over Canada or Mexico and begin firing rockets at American cities and let's see how our government responds. People speak about proportionality as though a country has no right to do whatever it can to stop attacks against its own people. Hamas is sworn to the destruction against the State of Israel and Israel has the right to protect its people by any means possible. Period.

Is there anything new under the sun?

"Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency. If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finances of Turkey. We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence." - Theodor Herzl writing in Zionism's foundational document "The Jewish State", 1896

...and you can bomb the shit out of it--Legacy of George W. Bush. No matter if it's democratically elected, a university, a school, a mosque, children, wives, whatever. Just call it "terrorism" and more than half the entire world, the more "educated" half is behind you.

From the Wikipedia article on the Lodge Committee, a Senate committee investigating the conduct of the US war against the Philippines:

[The second witness,] General Robert P. Hughes was chief of staff to General Elwell S. Otis.

Hughes testified for two weeks. (March 5, 6, 8, Tuesday, March 11, 1902)

Hughes conceded that Filipino houses were burned indiscriminately for two reasons:

* as a strategy to eliminate shelters and hiding places for guerrillas

* as a deterrent

* * *

Senator Rawlins then asked General R.P. Hughes some questions:

Rawlins: If these shacks were of no consequence what was the utility of their destruction?

Hughes: The destruction was a punishment. They permitted these people to come in there and conceal themselves and they gave no sign. It is always--

Rawlins: The punishment in that case would fall, not upon the men, who could go elsewhere, but mainly upon the women and little children.

Hughes: The women and children are part of the family, and where you wish to inflict a punishment you can punish the man probably worse in that way than in any other.

Rawlins: But is that within the ordinary rules of civilized warfare? Of course you could exterminate the family which would be still worse punishment.

Hughes: These people are not civilized.

Israel is proof of the second half of this statement.

Glenn writes:

----

Those who favor the attack on Gaza due to that calculus are certainly misguided about the likely outcome.

----

Other than the "because Glenn Says So" logic, how are you so certain of this prediction? And would you please comment on how many military attacks Israel made on Palestinian areas in the 1990s leading up to the Second Intifada? And how many Palestinian suicide bombers went off after Israel's violent and bloody military response to the Second Intifada?

Just to refresh your memory, Glenn, the Palestinians used the excuse of Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount (OMG!!) to cover for Arafat's walking out on the peace process as the real reason to unleash the terror of hundreds of suicide bombers.

Peace efforts and tongue lashings by false equivalence experts such as yourself Glenn prevented Israel from responding militarily to this onslaught for well over a year.

Finally, in 2002, Israel militarily responded with a bloody, violent reaction:

Glenn, care to comment on how many suicide bombers have gone off in Israel since the borders were sealed off, checkpoints increased, and Israel responded with brutal and violent military action?

Yeah, I thought not.

Your entire premise is bullshit, Glenn, and I'm beginning to think you know it. You state future hypotheticals like they're fact (Israel's military response will not work), while ignoring that Israel's longest stretch of non-military violence against Palestine led up to the Second Intifada itself.

Your logic is ass-backwards.

Israel spends the 1990s reducing border control, arming Palestinian police, negotiating with the corrupt terrorist Yasser Arafat, and offering to give back land, and are met with nail bombs dipped in rat poison through their schools, buses and shops.

The 2000s, Israel unleashed numerous invasions, occupations and bombing campaigns, and the violence drops signicantly.

There will be no Third Intifada, Glenn, for the very reasons you claim there will be.

None of this excuses the specifics of military crimes. When Israel commits a crime, it can and should be observed and noted.

But your pathetic, unsourced, and unsupported claim that this "won't work" is belied by the exact opposite of the past 20 years. While this may not be the path to peace, it certainly is the path to less Israelis getting killed by Palestinians. And, last time I checked, that's a valid motivation for a nation's military to take action. To prevent the death of their own citizens.