You are so exquisitely full of shit. Are you capable of doing the things you reccomend? then go and do them. The IDF is always seeking a few good mensches.

My pagan Irish ancestors believed that one should mourn a birth and celebrate a death. They had spiritual reasons for this outlook. Does that make us barbarians in that fellows eyes?

"The anti-Israel contingent picked up on one statement, and failed to acknowledge my substantive criticism of Israel. Did you folks even read my post?"

Yeah, that happened to me just the other day when I started out a post with an anecdote about black people and watermelon. They are trying to silence us!

As for dancing in the streets. Do you remember our invasions of Iraq? "Yay, America we can do it?" Pro-American parades. Veterans Day Parades? If you were at all a fair minded person, you would see that every society celebrates its own casualties and the casualties they inflict on the 'enemy' whoever they may be at any given time.

There are no celebrations in America when innocents are killed. We do not celebrate the dropping of bombs on civilians, period, and it isn't part of our culture, at all. For you to try to muddy the issue with Veteran's Day is frankly laughable. While I might agree with your sentiment that VDay is somewhat macabre, it is quite different from specifically celebrating the death of innocent people, and I believe that you know the difference.

If the Palestinians have a "culture of death", why is their birth-rate so high? Israelis seem to be the ones so concerned about demographics and their own low birth rate.

A culture which can keep having babies under these appaling circumstances seems much more devoted to life than a culture which has, as a matter of course, the armanents needed to kill the entire Middle East. Some life-culture.

Since we seem to be merely throwing around epithets rather than addressing each others' comments, fuck you.

There, feel better?

Hmmm. It took exactly forty five seconds to find an example of Americans celebrating deaths resulting from their military activities. I'm sorry, I'm not going to use the word "innocent"; frankly I find it offensive. At this point in the Iraq invasion, the US had killed 8,000 Iraqis. I suppose you think none of those people were innocent. And indeed, that we had a good reason for killing them.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/05/01/bush.carrier.landing/

The video you linked is from a Hamas rally, when one of their trucks carrying rockets was accidentally set on fire and detonated.

http://reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7n4re/a/9rj2

That doesn't make your conclusions about the violence less accurate, but I don't think your opinion of Israel benefits from this video that appears to show rockets being fired into a crowd.

and failed to acknowledge my substantive criticism of Israel.

Your criticism that Israel does not kill enough Palestinians, nor kill them britally enough? That's some criticism.

I agree. For example, Barack Obama famously said "If my children were being endangered by the possibility of missiles coming though the roof and killing all of us, I'd do everything in my power to stop that". (Can't find the exact quote but it was something like that").

When saying this, Obama missed a golden opportunity by specifying that this was an Israeli concern. He could have pointed out that this same concern was equally true for Palestinians. I'd speculate that many more Palestinians have died from bombs and missiles coming through their roofs than have Israelis.

But my concern regarding the suicide bombers is that their implementation will put the dispute beyond reclamation. Once they start--then there will be nothing anyone can do to stop the cycle.

Bush's Mission Accomplished stunt? That's the best you can come up with?

That PR gag was widely lambasted in both the press and in America at large. Pretending as though it's indicative of American culture is completely ludicrous.

"He could have pointed out that this same concern was equally true for Palestinians."

Indeed, he could have. There was an articel in Friday's NYT about Hillary Clinton's evolution in rhetoric. Going from making some of the kinds of statements you mentioned that would mourn the casualties on both sides--and the opprobrium they garnered--to her much safer mourning of one side, which appears to be the vogue of today's liberal politician.

This entire discussion is an almost exact repeat of similar discussions in prior times.

Nothing seems to change in the Middle East. Centuries of history illustrate that, and any hope for lasting solutions has to come from a mindset that rejects religion and a history of conlict.

Good luck with that.

"Did you folks even read my post?"

Some of us do and like a hawk as well. Remember me do you?

"There are no celebrations in America when innocents are killed. We do not celebrate the dropping of bombs on civilians,"

Never mind people not reading your posts properly how about you read Greenwald properly to begin with eh rene?

From the heart of the comet of which our comments are merely trailing dust, a comment from M Goldfarb:

"The fight against Islamic radicals always seems to come around to whether or not they can, in fact, be deterred, because it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us. But to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions."

Whats that if not vulgar celebration it sure sounds like a cat purring with satisfaction to me.

As for you and ommex on the matter of parades and the false glories that they nurture, I'll leave you with Neil Young who being a bit of slow boy at first supported the Iraq War but has wisened up since.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2EDi-QZ4Es&feature=related