The problem is not just the level of interest in the Middle East. It is the fact that Israel's genocidal policies are financed by American taxpayers and executed using American-supplied weapons.

"They do it too!"

Is that the sum and substance of your defense? Because if so, I heard it the first time.

"I remember when this used to be called the Arab-Israeli conflict. Then it was the Israeli-Palistinian conflict. Now it is the Israeli-Hamas conflict. So Israel has narrowed down the opposition to just one faction of the Arab world. (You can add in Hezbollah as another fraction.) I find that interesting. I think that might be part of what Israel is trying to gain."

Your unique reasoning process makes me wonder if you are Thomas Friedman.

Even the Saudis are worried about the radicals, and the Saudis are about as fundamental as it gets.

But why would the our democracy spreading and freedom loving friends in the House of Saud be worried about radicals? It must be because the radicals hate the large amounts of freedom the House of Saud grants its citizens, and all the short shorts that those Saudi women wear when running around town voting.

"They did it first"

That photograph is merely showing rather pretty smoke shells. What, do you expect the IDF to let the Turks, I mean Arabs, see them?

Israeli artillery shells explode with a chemical agent designed to create smokescreen for ground forces

See?

farking afraid of... practically everything?

The pathetic Hamas "missiles" drive them nuts with fear. Trash talking Palestinians, even kids, make them tremble in fright. Iran scares them in their sleep.

Hamas and Hezbullah rockets are not an existential threat to Israel. They can't be. The notion that they are is absurd. And yet we see constant screaming from Israelis and their flacks that these unguided weapons will destroy Israel and drive all the Jews into the sea. Ludicrous.

Olmert hears that Condi has brokered a ceasefire at the UN and he gets the willies so bad he has to call up Bush and tell him to make it stop. What is he so afraid of?

Saudi women are too free and love democracy too much to drive cars.

e-man: Israel is not "targeting" general civilian populations in Gaza. Israel is using the most advanced weaponry available to target Hamas. It is, admittedly, an imperfect exercise. But a necessary one, in reponse to Hamas' doing the obverse of what you condmen; targeting Israeli civilian populations with its own rocket fire. And without "American munitions," I suppose that Israel might be causing even more collateral damage and civilian casualties.

shitter: ... the civilians have harbored Hamas and enabled their terrorism. The civilians are the target here, because they hold ultimate responsibility for their situation.

Have you guys met?

And the call for a pro-Hamas editorial to "balance" the anti-Hamas editorials is exactly the type of nonsensical false equivalencies that Glenn, you so often decry in the shouting TV media world.

Is the moon made out of green cheese? Some people say yes. Some people say no.

This is excellent. Not only should we supply Israel with the money and bombs used to kill Palestinian children and destroy Gaza, but we should also make sure that -- even on our opinion pages and in other media outlets -- we should never hear from anyone who criticizes Israeli actions or who articulates the Palestinian side.

We should not only kill Palestinians but make sure that neither they nor anyone advocating their cause is heard from, because Israel is so clearly and objectively right that to hear anything other than full-scale lockstep cheering for Israel is the same as publishing the claim that 2+2 = 5.

Freedom is on the march.

While you're advocating hearing from only one side of a war, do you also have good things to say about Israel's banning of Arab political parties? The two go hand and hand.

Apparently, Shooter can't get it up in the morning unless he knows some stupid Palestinians are dying in Gaza.

Brian Bilbray got the memo:

It is regrettable that fighting has returned to this region that has been so heavily divided for the last fifty years. This most recent fighting was sparked after Hamas, a group identified as a terrorist organization by the United States, launched more than 6,000 rockets into southern Israel from Gaza in the time since Israel withdrew its civilian and military populations in 2005. As any nation would do when faced with repeated and constant attacks targeting its civilian population, Israel has chosen to respond with an effort to eliminate the ability of Hamas to continue these attacks. Unfortunately, Hamas has chosen to purposely launch their attacks while hiding in civilian areas, using non-combatants as human shields, which has resulted in the death of many innocent civilians in recent days. Still, as the conflict in Gaza continues, the humanitarian crisis is growing worse as peaceful Palestinians are exposed to increasingly untenable living conditions.

If you have quotes from your representatives, please consider adding here:

http://lovefromtheruins.blogspot.com/2009/01/palestinians-deserve-to-die.html

All the power to you man!

Those aren't pictures of WP, they are like the rockets, merely fireworks launched by the democratically elected Hamas to celebrate the slaughter and martyring of their people by the Freedom and Democracy loving Israelis. The two sides are merely showing each other their love of freedom and democracy by freely trying to kill each other.

The idea that Bush didn't invent disregarding the Constitution is certainly true. FDR interned Japanese-Americans, as but one of many examples and they don't make anyone proud. And Bush didn't invent signing statements, either. My point is that Bush's relentless abuses, unchecked by Congress (which I didn't mention in my already-plenty-long post) has put Bush in a whole different league. The place Bush has taken the country is now resulting in Beltway discourse that presumes, without discussion, that the law itself is not relevant as a starting point of discussion or unless it supports your position.

And no, Obama should not be expected to reverse all the evils of the Bush Administration -- not because he's evil himself, but because that's the way the Constitution presumes the Executive will act (maximizing the Executive's power unless restrained by the Legislative and Judicial branches, have we seen much of that during Bush's time?).

I don't join you in the conclusion that all is lost and all is corrupt, but I do understand it.

What I want to see is the Obama Administration and Congress step up and reinstitute some respect for the rule of law. Abolishing signing statements referencing the true evil there (Bush's concept of "unitary executive", which is repugnant to the Constitution), pursuing war crimes and felony wiretapping, and the like, etc. Obama alone isn't the one to be expected to cure all these things, but Obama can set the tone. And the tone must be respect for the law.

Here's to that maybe happening some. GG's article today provides yet another reminder of just how far off base we have allowed the discourse to be misdirected.