Wow! Who's apple needs polishing to get that gig?

Look purely at what Israel does, ignore what the Israeli State says. Their real strategy seems clear:

Wreak enough havoc on the Palestinians every few years to keep them barely scraping by. Then they're too busy trying to keep body and soul together to ever form a viable entity with whom Israel might seriously have to negotiate.

Work toward the same goal between "hot" attacks by unrelenting harassment: checkpoints, blockades, food shortages, job loss, and the usual.

It might seem counterproductive to make all your neighbors hate your guts, but the Israeli government could be seeing a scenario in which it makes some Machiavellian sense. Twenty years down the road, or whenever oil becomes less important to the world, the powers-that-be will care little what the Middle East thinks. The Israeli State may be calculating that if, at that point, the neighbors can do nothing but pick through rubble it doesn't matter how much everyone hates everyone.

Tom Friedman seems to me to be utterly incapable of seeing others as equals to the great Western savvy. Tom is quite gullible. Tom is heartless. Tom doesn't know economics, doesn't know politics or war. Tom is a spoiled child petulantly decrying any who would challenge the ubermenchen of the West.

Tom Friedman is a racist as well. What do you call someone who believes Jews are superior to all others? Are Jews a race, religion, a nationality, What??? Tom doesn't know the answer to this question, in fact, no one will even address this question.

Are Jews a race, religion or what? It matter cause we need to properly label Israel and her supporters. Are they racist? Religious fanatics? or what?

Tom Friedman is like a sloppy uncle who whispers dirty words and says incorrect things that sound compelling to ignorant ears. Old Uncle Tom has betrayed America for Israel, But then again, Uncle Tom can't differentiate between the two.

As Gwynne Dyer points out in a recent article, the Gaza incursion is worse than a crime; it's a mistake. We in the US seem to be suffering from some kind of dementia - a madness that blocks reason and pursues failed policies endlessly. The Cuban embargo is a good example; and our unflinching support of Israel's endless occupation of the West Bank and suppression of Gaza is a second. Both of these ruinous policies have led to nothing but catastrophes.

The word "subnational" in the official US definition of terrorism is not incidental - it is the only thing which prevents the US, among other nations, from being guilty of massive terrorism. The wholesale bombing of Germany and Japan in the later stages of WW II, culminating in the atomic bombs, deliberately killed many hundreds of thousands of civilians. This type of bombing was originally known as "terror bombing", but when the US began using it it was renamed "strategic bombing".

It is basic axiom of counterinsurgency that deaths and injuries to the civilian population, destruction of their homes and actual or perceived mistreatment of the "innocent" caught up in the conflict, what Friedman would call ‘collateral damage’ acts as a recruiting sergeant, drawing new fighters from the population. Thus overreaction and disproportionate casualties must be avoided This is taught in EVERY WAR COLLEGE with reference to Ireland, Algeria, etc.

So how does a complete idiot like Friedman get to be an pundit?

By the way, I am at present in London and hence saw Dershowitz on the BBC last night rying to debate a professor of international law. Dershowitz started to argue that the Palestinians in Gaza, having voted for Hamas, deserve the consequences. What a hypocrite -- does he realise that Hamas makes the same argument about Israeli civilians, since they elected the government that has prosecuted this lethal attack and the blockade of Gaza that has killed so many, that has allowed the settlements, etc.

This is what really pisses me off -- when the Nazis make the argument, or Hamas it's terrible and rightly denounced, but when Dershowitz or Friedman invert it and apply it to the Palestinians, no one calls them hypocrites.

Don't you sometimes wonder whether what the war bullies are projecting their own sense of profound moral inadequacy on to the civilian Palestinians. If someone dropped phosphorous or a dime on Friedman, he would he change gears immediately, spouting whatever cant the powers that be wanted. Isn't that really his track record on foreign policy? Cheney cracked the whip and Tom pulled out his war monger mask. He's incapable of imagining that someone would respond to such displays of power by choosing to oppose power rather than yield to it. So the war bullies think such "teach a lesson" approaches to foreign policy must work on the Palestinians. After all it worked on them.

I too found Friedman's column disturbing and startling in its unabashed embrace of terrorism, collective punishment, and the repudiation of international laws (including the Geneva Conventions) that require efforts to minimize civilian casualties. Even Friedman's disgusting "suck on this" filth must take a back seat to today's column for vile, unrepentant support of war crimes.

By the way, I am at present in London and hence saw Dershowitz on the BBC last night rying to debate a professor of international law. Dershowitz started to argue that the Palestinians in Gaza, having voted for Hamas, deserve the consequences. What a hypocrite -- does he realise that Hamas makes the same argument about Israeli civilians, since they elected the government that has prosecuted this lethal attack and the blockade of Gaza that has killed so many, that has allowed the settlements, etc.

That was also Ward Churchill's argument as to why the 9/11 attacks were justified.

Does anyone have any clips or reports of Dershowitz's making that argument?

then we'll have to disagree. not so big a deal. but whether or not the conflation is typical -- and that's not the case within the industry -- it's still not accurate.

if you recognize how the deterioration of news-gathering and reporting has been hastened by the willful disregard between those functions and editorializing, you'll understand that it's a distinction worth defending.