I've never before been "shock and awed"

But I have been a little

Shake 'n baked..

That link, unfortunately, has no evidence of what you're saying. The fact that Hamas is open to a ceasefire, does not mean its more open to negotiation. Hamas, as has been well documented, was seeking negotiation with Israel for months.

Ah, from America, or I guess, a comfortable spot anywheres these days, you can view everything as a series of film scenarios. Thinking about how you would make a movie about something is not the same thing as thinking about it, I think. And of course, the "Orientalism" concept frees your mind, opens it to the fantasic, exotic and barbaric.

"Warnography".

If that isn't a word, it should be.

I opened the NYT editorial pages this morning, and within five minutes said to myself, there's a Glenn Greenwald article coming!

And sure enough, here it is, and it is a good one!

I wonder if Friedman can be negotiated with.

I second that coinography.

"I wonder if Friedman can be negotiated with."

I don't know. How are you with Rabid Dogs?

My understanding is that the content of what Hamas wants to negotiate about (i.e. longer-term ceasefire) and the terms it's willing to accept (i.e. international monitors for weapons smuggling) have expanded significantly since the ground phase began. As I said, I haven't, nor am I inclined to find every link detailing this story. I gave you my sources and my honest conclusion of what I got from them. If you differ, you differ.

ALL WAR IS A WAR CRIME. All war has in some cases inadvertently and in other cases unfortunately on purpose targeted civilians. This one is no different. My proportionality arguement is the stupidity of figuring out (1) what a proportional response would be as this affects much more than life and property but piece of mind, collective fear etc. Paul you tell me what in your mind is a just response from Israel figuring in all the factors that go into the collective psyche of a group under attack on a daily basis (2) and why when attacked would a group use a proportional response which just perpetuates the violence. I think Friedman is wrong here in his notion only because the Israeli government tends to be too concerned about their standing in the West to truly indiscriminantly target civilians. But again I don't get Glenn's notions here and I think we need to stop thinking of war as a sanitary foreign policy approach as we did after the first Gulf War. War is truly terrible and those governments that incite this have little sympathy from me (different for the people caught in this).

Glenn's work would be much better spent figuring out approaches to end this cycle of violence rather than harping on legal technicalites from the NYT.

typical of his reportage is a biased syntax and inflammatory terminology narrating events.

"terrified residents ran for cover"--certainly true but misleading to omit hamas militants' use of schools, mosques and residences to launch their attacks on israel's southern region.

oh, then the lovely rape imagery of "israeli troops back by tanks thrust deeper into the city"--definitely an objective accounting of the details.

then when defense minister barak was "asked if Israel's war aims had been achieved"--the aim isn't war; if that were the case there wouldn't be a stick of furniture standing in gaza.

oh, but finally buried deep in this article a tacit admission of the idf strategy as "an offensive launched Dec. 27 to end years of Palestinian rocket attacks on its southern towns." that's the aim.

here's the kicker: "Palestinian hospital officials say more than 940 Palestinians, half of them civilians, have been killed in the fighting. A total of 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers, have died." whereas palestinians have been "killed", somehow mysteriously 13 israels have "died", i suppose of natural causes or perhaps bad schwarma.

the greater context at work in this ongoing conflict is that what palestinian militants lack in firepower to match idf they attempt to compensate with a public relations strategy, i.e., the more civilians killed in the cross-fire all the worse for israel trying to defend its own citizenry.

i've yet to see any bright ideas from glenn on how to stop the rocket attacks on southern israel. it wasn't enough for israel to withdraw to gush katif, it seems.

And the Lions are dedicated to winning the Super Bowl. So?

Even if Israel had magic millimeter-wave radar allowing them to pinpoint every Hamas militant and cause their brains to explode by remote control, there is still the million and a half other Gazans there, being increasingly radicalized by the day.

And despite what some of our more woo-woo commenters intimate, it's just not possible to kill 1500000 people, even if Israel wanted that (and I don't believe they do).

Again and again and again: two options. 1. Negotiate. 2. Stalemate. I see no option 3.

Put another one down to my incoherence and general intellectual confusion. But hey, I'm a nice guy when you get to know me.

Anyway, I was trying to say that the philosophical underpinnings (did I just type that? Excuse while I bang my head on the wall) depends so much on all this triumph-of-the-will and "dare to be great" (Gosh I wish I could say that in...) and "New Man". Not to mention a whole lot of blood-and-soil narratives. Look, you can't really blame a guy for picking up a bargain! After WW1 and again after WW2 there were all these discarded ideologies hanging around, you could pick them up for nothing, refurbish them Jewish style and, away you go! And you know, a guy could get pretty desperate if he was a Jew. There was tremendous persecution, culminating in the Holocaust.

You are right on.This guy a BaldieMcEagle dude tried to compare the rocket killings of Hamas to Bear attacks causing more deaths!!!I challenged him for his solution and he hasn't been heard from here since.Most of these nitwits are long on sarcasm,ideology and holier than thou attitudes but very short on solutions.They have selective outrage it seems and don't see how obvious thier phonyness is.They just have all the answers without knowing any of the questions.Challenge them for thier solutions they fold like the house of cards they try to sell us on.The keyboard and the damage done.May Islamicfacist martyrs collect thier 70 virgin at all thier expense.