http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qassam_rocket

The aim of the Qassam rocket design appears to be ease and speed of manufacture, using common tools and components. To this end, the rockets are propelled by a solid mixture of sugar and potassium nitrate, a widely available fertilizer. The warhead is filled with smuggled or scavenged TNT and urea nitrate, another common fertilizer.[9]

The rocket consists of a steel cylinder, containing a rectangular block of the propellant. A steel plate which forms and supports the nozzles is spot-welded to the base of the cylinder. The warhead consists of a simple metal shell surrounding the explosives, and is triggered by a fuze constructed using a simple firearm cartridge, a spring and a nail.[9]

While early designs used a single nozzle which screwed into the base, recent rockets use a seven-nozzle design, with the nozzles drilled directly into the rocket baseplate. This change both increases the tolerance of the rocket to small nozzle design defects, and eases manufacture by allowing the use of a drill rather than a lathe during manufacture due to the smaller nozzle size. Unlike many other rockets, the nozzles are not canted, which means the rocket does not spin about its axis during flight. While this results in a significant decrease in accuracy, it greatly simplifies rocket manufacture and the launch systems required.[9]

Since I'm a modren American, when I hear the words "rockets" or "missles" I think of sophisticated, powerfully armed, long range guided projectiles, launched and guided with high tech electronic systems, the product of 50 years of the most intense weapons developments, manufactured with the most advanced techniques available.

I think the Zionists and their supporters use that misconception to their advantage.

No, I wouldn't want to be hit, or have anybody else hit, or have my house hit by one of these things.

But I think we should be clear about exactly what level of military organisation and capabilities they represent.

I think you might be mistaken in thinking that the 2006 war lessened Lebanese support for Hizbolla, for example:

http://www.beirutcenter.info/default.asp?contentid=692&MenuID=46

and

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0728/p06s01-wome.html

It's my instinct that unless a population is decimated, collective punishment (or high collateral damage) tends to galvanize a population, not make it turn on it's resistance fighters. That's my read of the London Blitz, of the sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad, of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, etc.

I think it's pretty clear that Friedman and other supporters of the Gaza attacks are either speaking in emotional terms, finding comfort in retribution and revenge killing, that are divorced from any realistic analysis of consequences (it will not bring stability or peace or an end to Hamas terrorist attacks, nor will it increase good relations with other Arab neighbours). Or they see the decimation of Gazans as an acceptable solution for Israel, and this is one stage of several (including food and fuel blockades, endemic poverty, restrictions on movement, etc.) that work toward that goal.

I suspect a lot of war supporters in the United States are fantasists who are having a hard time accepting the failure of the War on Terror.

Yawn....

To think..

To imagine..

That TOM FRIEDMAN

STILL holds a JOB....!

"Of the regular posters to Glenn's blog, I would venture that few of them accept the idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East. This either is based on a misunderstanding of Jewishness as a nationality or a misunderstanding of the history of the late Ottoman period and the vast influx of BOTH Jews and Arabs to Palestine as a result of both the Zionist movement and the British Mandate."

As usual, your comments are completely free of fact or documentation. From what I've seen, there is a wide spectrum of opinions about whether Israel HAD the right to exist as an exclusive Jewish nation in 1948. No one doubts that any constituted nation, after generations of existance has a right to exist. The question seems here to be: in what form does Israel have the right to exist? Do Palestinians born Israeli citizens have the right to exist as full citizens of Israel? How about the children of domestic servants brought from South East Asia and unable to become citizens? Do they have the right to exist in Israel?

As for your influx of both Jews and Arabs theory, you conflate two very different periods that are ten, thirty, or even forty years apart. Even Zionists recognize the difference in scope of the non-Zionist aliyahs of the late Ottoman period, and the Zionist aliyahs abetted by the British Mandate. The British mandate has very reliable census data, please post your links to the parts that support your theory.

...

No one definition of terrorism has gained universal acceptance. For the purposes of this report, however, we have chosen the definition of terrorism contained in Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d). That statute contains the following definitions:

The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant (1) targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience. . . .

(1) For purposes of this definition, the term "noncombatant" is interpreted to include, in addition to civilians, military personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed and/or not on duty...

Funny, that is also the textbook definition of "Shock and Awe."

"Tom Friedman, one of the nation's leading propagandists for the Iraq War and a vigorous supporter of all of Israel's wars, has a column today in The New York Times explaining and praising the Israeli attack on Gaza."

I totally disagree with Glenn's take of this Op Ed.

First Freidman has NOT been a propagandist for the Iraq war. I read many OpEd where he disagreed with Bush's going into Iraq.

He was NOT praising Israel's attack of Gaza. Freidman was posing a question trying to makes sense of Israel's motives. I suggested you read the entire article at NYT.

~That we had chosen to attack Alberta, with the most precise weapons that we had, to target the specific individuals responsible for the rocket attacks.

Maybe you haven't noticed, Elephantman, but a bomb of any size is not able to take out a specific individual alone.

You drop a bomb, its going to explode and cause a lot of damage and death around the detonation site. Doesn't matter if you got the specific target you were aiming for or not; you've just pissed off everyone who survived and all their family. They, in turn, are likely going to want revenge and will go to whatever lengths they're willing to in order to get it.

This operation is a self-defeating strategy, at least as far as the goals you stated earlier go. Pretending its anything else is rank stupidity.