A bit late, but your questions can be rephrased:

So the question for [Palestinians] is what is to be done with a group of people funded by other countries [like the US] looking to destabilize the area -- who absolutely do not believe in [Palestine's] right to exist? How do you deal with a masss build-up of ever more sophisticated arsenal of weapons [F-16s, 2000-lb bombs, Apache helicopters] with a pipeline to more incoming weapons via [shipments from the US] with rockets that can go deeper and deeper into your own country?

The theme music alone could have done that. i'm sure it played a great deal in so many of my generation going out and working for free on Kibbutz. They thought they were helping bring about a new and ultimately peaceful land.

The romantic dreams and folly of youth what?

The 'roadmap for peace' should be scrapped altogether, given that Palestinian Govt. has changed since Bush's edict, Hamas winning a majority.

It also seems like a new wave of suicide bombings will soon begin, regardless of what happens in Gaza. The US might have a small window of time to intervene and restart a true participatory peace process prior to the onset of suicide bombings in Israel. To halt those bombings, the US should begin a policy of negotiating with terrorists. I think it would be in US interest to take steps to save Hamas now, in order to have someone to talk to later.

Tribalism is by definition irrational and is the cause of the majority of armed and unarmed conflicts -- a pushback against the "other."

But here's what I truly don't understand (I'd like an explanation) about the Israeli-Hamas relationship: within the world community, Israel is recognized as a sovereign nation and thus has the inherent right to exist. Moreover, its citizens, whatever their ethnicity, have a right to life & liberty.

In THIS sovereign nation -- the U.S. -- it is treasonous to plot to and/or to take up arms against the state, and it is unlawful to threaten bodily harm to others. If I posted terrorist threats or calls to arms on the Internets or if I started lobbing rockets at the neighbors, I'd go indirectly to jail -- even if I were the town mayor and everybody but the neighbors liked me.

So why shouldn't the same be true for people -- whatever their ethnicity or politics -- who do or threaten to do violence to the people or to the state of Israel? It just makes sense to me that violent people or those who pose an imminent threat of violence should not be allowed to walk the streets. Anywhere.

I'm all for civil disobedience as a means of protesting outrageous government action. But I don't resort to violence or to physically harming others. Why should Palestinians be privileged to harm representative of the Israeli government (or its citizens) even though they be oppressors? In short, why aren't the Hamas militants ALREADY in jail (or deported)?

The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com

Derbig, are you seriously asking why Jews have a historical problem not having a state of their own? Keep asking, my friend, I don't have time or inclination to teach you to read.

That video is difficult to watch; I actually wish I hadn't seen it. So I think that alone testifies to how important it is, as an Al Arabiya reporter said on CNN last night, to show the impact of war from both sides. That is the greatest problem here in the US--people are accustomed to viewing the light show on the 24 hour cable news networks, but rarely see what those explosions are doing to bodies and lives.

In a related note, one of the reasons Americans find it so easy to empathize with the rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, but not with the Palestinian victims of occupation (and that's not even counting these kinds of terror offensives from Israel) is that the daily cost of the occupation to Palestinians is rarely treated at any length by the US media. Of course, shootings and deaths as collateral damage and accidents are a daily and weekly function of the occupation--rarely reviewed in US circles, though in a very short time these deaths add up in the society and the memories of Palestinians.

Movement restrictions keep Palestinians from reaching their places of work, or from seeing their loved ones. This may be difficult to believe but I lived with a few young Gazan men when I first arrived in Ramallah who hadn't been home to see their parents in 8 years. Palestinians are not allowed to travel back and forth from the West Bank and Gaza, though the distance is probably greater from New Jersey to New York.

These movement restrictions trap people in their villages, prevent them from working or from seeing loved ones, and in the case of Jerusalem and the West Bank, keep husbands, wives and children apart. The constant spectre of administrative detention--renewable without cause in six month increments, is something every single Palestinian must face on a daily basis.

The medical cost of the checkpoints and movement restrictions are also high; people die at checkpoints trying to access medical care, women have their children at checkpoints while waiting for ambulances.

All of these are well-documented and easily accessed, but virtually invisible to the US media. Even outside of the blockade, life has been difficult for Gazans and West Bankers for decades--even through the Oslo Process. These things are not forgotten--in fact, events such as Israel's offensive serve as a lens to magnify the grievance and create the kind of violence that we take such care to lament when it is directed at Israelis.

The theme music alone could have done that. i'm sure it played a great deal in so many of my generation going out and working for free on Kibbutz. They thought they were helping bring about a new and ultimately peaceful land.

The romantic dreams and folly of youth what?

Don't forget the Sabras, my Lad. The idea that I could, by day, handle an automatic weapon, and spend the nights between those thighs of iron which they were forging the new Jewish race, was a big factor when I contemplated spending summers on a kibbutz.