"Unfortunately for the Hamas-first crowd, Israel has every right to eradicate the source of all these terrorist rocket launchings."

You think this hurts American "supporters" of Hamas (if there even are any). But you're wrong. It hurts Palestinians. I'm sure you don't realize it, but you're cheerleading some pretty major atrocities. If you had anything close to a soul, you would realize that even if you are a hundred percent right, and Hamas bears ALL the responsibility, Israel should never have been allowed to do what it is doing.

It won't stop the attacks. I can guarantee you that even if the attacks stop, within 10 years the cycle will begin again, and they may be far worse and unrelenting. That will be long enough for the children who witnessed and were affected by all this to grow into adulthood with the kind of mental and physical scars armchair mass murderers like you can only imagine.

But you don't care about that. You just want to fight with people on the internet.

"Please stop trashing U.N. relief workers."

I just find this shocking and really indicative of the thought process involved with these kinds of people. These UN workers are some of the bravest MFer's out there. I mean, few here can probably imagine running around the tanks and heavily armed representatives of one of the most deadly and sophisticated armies in the world. It truly shows that such commenters have nothing real or positive to add to this discourse.

"As if Israel didn't bend over backwards to give the Palestinians sovereignty, a police force, land, infrastructure and money."

The saddest thing is you are completely unable to see the incredible contradictions in that sentence.

I wasn't asleep during the nineties. In 2000, I saw the effects of the wonderous "sovereignty" gift given by Israel.

--Israel doubled its settler population in areas it was supposed to negotiate for return at the end of the Oslo process.

--Israel set up a complex system of movement restrictions and road blocks, that prevented vast numbers of Palestinians from leaving their towns and communities

--Israel continued military activities and occupation in about 70 percent of the area that people such as yourself erroneously believe were "sovereign". These were Areas B and C, mostly outside of major population centers, where the occupation never ended, the military bases stayed and the PA legal and social structure did not apply.

--Israel cut Gaza off from the West Bank, and the West Bank off from Jerusalem; the three were intrinsically linked economically and socially.

Now you could argue that Israel did all of these things for security reasons; please do. That would be an argument we could have rationally, although ultimately you would lose that one. Unfortunately, we can't have the discussion based on the 'facts' you are proposing, because I don't have access to your imagination.

To answer your question - read Newton again. Does he mention whether the mass gathered is shoddily built or not? He does not Just heed Newton like you would traffic signals and you wont go far wrong driving down this particular street.

Now stop it your tickling me and I don't want another lecture from PDN.

"Why didn't I just consult my inner bile and spout a whole bunch of uninformed righteous indignation?"

It would save time, wouldn't it? But then we would be idiots.

If Israel was any more helpless against Gazan missiles, the people of Gaza would be wiped out by now. I think they're just the right amount of helpless against Gazan aggression.

But then again, I also believe Israel was correct when it stated that a blockade, such as imposed on Gaza, is a causus belli for war.

When it comes to Israel, I'm just a fanboy.

You've been having this marathon dialogue with yourself for nearly a day now. I'm sure you've offended yourself quite enough by now, but recent studies show such intent computer enabled inner discourse can cause psychosis; take a break, go take a walk around the block, smoke a cigarette or something...

And Glenn. His deep love for the suffering of the Palestinians. It's noble and altruistic. And not simply an excuse to rant away pathologically at the illigitimacy of a country that bothers him for reasons so complex, he can't acknowledge them coherently without complete cognitive meltdown.

Clearly. Because only a psychologically disturbed person would see images of Palestinian children being slaughtered in the most brutal and inhumane ways imaginable and react with anger and disgust.

Any psychologically healthy person would be indifferent to that suffering. Anyone who is bothered by it must be harboring antisemitism or some other nefarious psychological complex.

What James Wolcott said about Jamie Kirchick and the "operative level of his moral intelligence" is exactly, 100% applicable to you:

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2009/01/is-there-no-escaping-this.html

And I love the John Bolton-like anti-UN paranoia. It must be clarifying to see who your like-minded allies are.

Whether the dissenting voices be Israeli or Palestinian the tribal imperatives will probably crush them.

What Irshad Manji has written about Fatah and Hamas applies equally to other Middle Eastern cultures and their foreign collaborators.

http://www.irshadmanji.com/im-palestinian-leader-fatah-and-hamas-come-from-the-same-root

The thing is, when you make peace, you have to make peace with your enemies. You don't get to pick who you want to make peace with: I'm quite sure that Israel could make peace with say Belgium any time it wants. This has always been one of the core problems: Israel has always tried to manipulate who exactly it was it would make peace with, instead of making peace with its actual enemies.

Whether or not Hamas is a terrorist or extremist or whatever organization, it is pretty authentically Israel's enemy (which is part of why, incidentally, it won the last election, even if it is deeply distrusted by most Palestinians). If Israel wants to make peace, (and not simply receive an unconditional surrender, which it isn't going to get anyway), it is actually going to have to talk to Hamas, baby killers though they may be. And Hamas, if it wants peace, is going to actually have to talk to Israel, baby killers though they may be.

To date, oddly enough, Hamas has shown slightly more (though admittedly precious little) willingness to sit down and talk with the hated enemy than Israel and the Bush Administration has.

Going on and on about Hamas' (since amended BTW) charter, going on and on about their evilness and implacability and so on, pretty much indicates that you do not actually want peace at all. Which is fine in some situations; I for one do not particularly want peace with the Taliban, for example. But at least I don't lie about it, and claim that I am peace-loving and the only reason we don't have peace is the other side's intransigence. And I have to admit, even there, it is becoming clear that at some point we are going to have to sit down and cut some kind of deal with the southern war-lords and yes, the Taliban sympathizers, if we ever want to get out of Afghanistan. I just hope the deal includes Afghani girls getting to go to school.

Pretty much the only glimmer of hope I still have (and silly me, after 30+ years of Mid-East experience I should know better than to have any hope at all) is that the Obama Administration has pretty much made it clear that they will be willing to talk to just about anybody, that they understand that 'talking to' does not necessarily mean 'agreeing with.' It is a very refreshing and long overdue approach, but one, I fear, that will enrage the Israel First Likudnik lobby, and Obama has shown every sign possible of being terrified of them.

I think that the worst of Chamberlain's sins was that he did in fact make 'talking to' synonymous with 'giving in to' in the popular understanding; but it just isn't so. Taba showed that peace was just maybe possible, it is heartbreaking when you see just how close they came. The slamming shut of Taba by the Supreme Court's imposition of Bush and the Israeli election of that shit Sharon, is one of the most heartbreaking things ever, in a land with no shortage of heartbreak.