Round and round we go

...let's call it hat. this time his warmongering is a little more naked. what's unfathomable is why he is so highly regarded (THREE pulitzers, including one for commentary, as he'll remind you).

that's why he's dangerous. otherwise reasonable people think he's knowledgeable, when really he's just reflexively, aggressively stupid, and championing the philosophy of the bully. and to think there was a time when he acknowledged that the israeli settlement movement was populated by loons.

one nit, glenn: please don't conflate columns and essays on the oped pages, by definition opinion, with journalism, the assembling and reporting of fact. they're two different beasts, though foxians and their ilk relentlessly try to blur the borders.

Other than the fact that Friedman is advocating these actions for an actual state rather than a "subnational group,"

But that's the substantive difference here isn't it and aren't you trying to evade that distinction? If that distinction weren't there, every national participant in wars from the dawn of time would be "terrorists." Duh.
So much for your premise. How about a little honesty here for a change?

“The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” - Moshe Yaalon

Exactly. Until the Palestinians surrender and curb their own terrorists, no progress can be made. I don't care who came when from where, this is today. Do you want peace today? Don't shoot rockets or the weight of a National Army will descend upon you.

Don't like it? Too bad. Convince the Palestinians they are better served to pursue peace and prosperity wherever they end up. Otherwise you're on the side of more war.
P.S. This is why proportional response is a really bad idea. It merely perpetuates war footing and unrealistic expectations. More duh.

I'm not of the left myself, but have always been sympathetic to the aspirations of the left. I am a pacifist, and believe in the sanctity of every human life.

I have never understood why so many on the left adopt the fatilistic death-cult-like economic idea of resource scarcity as an unstoppable reason for aggressive war. There is, rationally speaking, no such thing as a resource in its own right. Uranium, for example, absent the human minds that invented uses for it (either constructive as in nuclear power, or destructive as in nuclear weapons) is just a rock. Oil, wiithout our modern petro-chemical economy (little over 100 years old) is just a nuisance.

What makes these things resources is the presence of human minds that invent economic uses for them.

One of the tragedies of Gaza is that human minds, potential Einsteins, Ghandis, Frankls, Curies - are being destroyed in the reckless pursuit of power for its own sake.

A further tragedy is that some who should be vehemently opposing this murderous megalomania, will excuse it by appealing to "resource scarcity" as if it were some irresistable force in human affairs.

It is not. It is a lie designed specifically to excuse murder and theft. Do not be deceived.

Hill people in Appalachia have a saying,

"You can't beat a man long enough, or hard enough to make him think your right."

My Grandad explained this to me forty years ago and I've never seen human beings break this simple rule.

Good blogpost Glen, thanks.

...cheerleading for the Iraq misadventure after writing books for years which called for the support of secular and capitalist elements in Arab society (an element which Saddam clearly was included) and changing the rationale for his support time and time again, Friedman is not an idiot. He is writing to explain the Israeli war aims, both in Lebanon and Gaza. While he is wrong that Israel was fighting in Lebanon for the "day after the day after tomorrow" (it went in without any thought because of the kidnapping of its soldiers), the unquestionable result of that war was that now Hezbollah is noticeably reticent about mixing it up with Israel. That lesson, perhaps reinforced by a secret deal between Israel and Hezbollah that was a factor in the Lebanese power sharing agreement, is what drives Israel now. If a painful exercise in destruction led Hezbollah to stop its constant border skirmishes, perhaps the same can happen with Hamas.

That is a reasoned explanation for the behavior of Israel in the current crisis. It is unlikely to succeed, and probably does not want to succeed in ousting Hamas, which would require Israel to once again occupy Gaza, but it is very likely to result in some solution to the rocket firing and other skirmishing on the border.

Since Glenn, on repeated occasions, has been unable to articulate what choices Israel had to stop the rockets and other attacks after 8 years other than war, this explains the Israeli actions, whether or not you believe it to be warranted. That is what Friedman expresses in his article...although he should have been deprived of his pen after his 4th revised justification for the Iraq war.

- Inflicting pain on civilians in order to change their thinking and behavior?

Change them into what?

"Peaceful Israel or American loving Palestinians"?!

This dude is nuts!

He needs to MOVE to Gaza to realize that even as a "strategy" (of terrorism) it will completely fail as long as it always seems to produce much more "new and hateful Terrorists" as the ones already defeated. And in the case of Gaza it seems to only have made Hamas stronger!

one nit, glenn: please don't conflate columns and essays on the oped pages, by definition opinion, with journalism, the assembling and reporting of fact.

I don't actually agree with this distinction. The term "journalism" if typically used to include Op-Ed writers and opinionists. In fact, as you allude to, Pulitzers are awarded to opinion columnists in several different categories, all listed in the category of "journalism":

http://www.pulitzer.org/awards

There is a difference between fact reporting and opinion writing, but both are discredited when they contain fact-free and deceitful propaganda.