Actually see you in 1Q09, like where we are now. 4Q08 is over, son.

Mr. Greenwald's piece presents a sane, ethical and wise view of this latest barbarism offered by our stalwart little ally in the Middle East. One is more likely to find such reporting and insight in the Israeli press than in our own mainstream media. See, for example, Gideon Levy's piece in yesterday's Haaretz, titled "And there lie the bodies" (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052348.html). Having, along with the United States, refuted and consistently labored to destroy the thoroughly democratic results of the January 2006 election won by Hamas, Israel, with the approval of its powerful ally that feeds billions into its military, has yet again thumbed its nose at everything ranging from decency to simple intelligence. The justifying mantra, of course, is "Destroy terrorism." A major problem here, as I see it, is the failure to designate the more lethal terrorist involved in this danse macabre. Apparently the last thing official Israel seems to want - and I emphasize "official" - is a peace that will lead to a viable Palestinian state - "viable" emphasized - and thus a failure to satisfy an Israeli Manifest Destiny; namely, the occupation and permanent ownership of all the land representing Biblical Israel. Right-wing Biblical fundamentalists, Jew and Christian alike, apparently long for nothing less, rivers of blood and misery inflicted on others notwithstanding.

Interesting how my mayor, New York's Michael Bloomberg, has rushed over to Israel in solidarity with its citizens, a noble gesture that might help him gain support in his upcoming election campaign. Worth noting, too, that this latest display of killing and destruction has occurred during election time in Israel when military gestures can assist politicians in their games of one-upmanship. Needless to say, our warrior geniuses, the Bill Kristols (see today's NY Times), the Michael Goldfarbs, are out in force, these cheerleaders for death and destruction; happy soldiers, they, in their neatly pressed shirts and ties as they purvey "how sweet and good it is" to kill and destroy for righteous cause, said cause handily identified by them, of course. As a Jew, I am appalled by fellow Jews who, apparently believing otherwise, subvert the very essence of a Judaism that might be handily defined as ethical monotheism.

May the likes of such truthsayers as Glenn Greenwald and Gideon Levy multiply. The world is in very sad need of them.

Remember the original thesis? "Extreme emotional and cultural identification with one side leads people to believe that X is good when done by them and evil when done to them." It's right at the top of the page.

This really a moment when humans must struggle with their evolution, in order to evolve. It's an absolutely natural, and by no means immoral thing to emotionally support and root for the tribe of the people who raised you. However, when that tribe is asking for your support for something that is morally atrocious, then you must take a deep breath, and ask yourself: Is my support for my tribe something I can support rationally? Or is it grounded in my emotional attachment? Is it both?

If enough people made a sincere effort at wrestling with these questions, I believe the world would be a much more peaceful place. Unfortunately, the leadership of most nations of the world seem to consist of a quasi-conspiracy of psychopaths--people who have no empathy for either their tribe or humanity as a whole. Their only alleigance is to themselves and their quest for power and control. As such, they devote tons of money and energy to spreading propaganda (the chutzpah bombs, for example--see link at sig) that encourages people to stay with their emotional, tribal, lizard-brain thinking, and avoid higher reasoning and introspection, for fear of being labeled "unpatriotic" or possibly "self-hating."

I was raised by agnostic parents and have no particular attachments to any religion, except those that come as a natural part of growing up American (Santa Claus and Jesus seem to be the top 2 deities), so I have a bit of distance from this conflict. It seems painfully obvious to me that the violence against the Gazans is an atrocity that must stop immediately. The Israeli reaction to Hamas' rocket attacks is completely insane. Imagine: if there were a functioning government and police force in Gaza, they would simply have to track and arrest the perpetrators of the rocket attacks, and voila! Problem solved. But instead, the Israelis choose to punish all the Gazans together. A hundred eyes for an eye, it seems. More old testament than the old testament.

I daresay that if your country is in the process of bombing a group of people with no reliable electricity, let alone a standing army, you have a moral responsibility to, at the very least, step back from your emotions for a moment and consider: "Are my emotional attachments to my country allowing me to think clearly? If I let my heartbeat and my breathing slow and really think about things logically here, can I rationally explain my support?" Maybe the question is, "Yes! My intellect and my emotions are in accord." If so, wonderful! But you owe it to the world--and to the people dying because of the actions of your government--to at least ask the question.

"But," you ask, "Shouldn't Palestinians introspect this way also? Shouldn't they ask whether their support for the deaths of Israeli citizens is really justified and logical or just the result of emotional attachments?" My answer: DUH! but keep in mind that neurologists studying the brain have found that functions of higher thinking and abstract reasoning (which are required for this type of introspection) are severely impaired in humans when they are under stress. I can think of few things more stressful than foreign invasion and constant bombings of apparently random targets all throughout your rather small, densely populated city.

The Israelis claim that they want Palestinians to reject Hamas' leadership, because Hamas is bad for the Palestinians, because Hamas provokes Israel into bombing the Palestinians. If they really wanted Palestinians to reject their leadership, they should make them materially comfortable, remove the stresses from their life, and give them some time to think. Once again, the military actions undertaken by a powerful Western government against a relatively weak opponent seem guaranteed to accomplish the opposite of its stated goals. So what else is new?