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.

I think it's atrocious. Israel falls short of many ideals of democracy, and they can and should be critiqued for this. However if you'd read Matt Yglesias, he provides the actual sober and serious contemplation on this issue that your one-sided rants sorely lack.

I guess I wasn't clear. By "getting the memo" I really meant that Bilbray was merely passing on the standard, debunked talking points.

Chris Floyd wrote yesterday about "Debunking the "Human Shield" Myth," based on a Counterpunch article I believe Paul Daniel Ash mentioned earlier in this thread.

http://tinyurl.com/6skfv4

What am I missing?

A map, an appreciation of demographics, and a bit of common sense.

An armed militia pledged to destroy Israel and drive its people into the sea backs up this pledge by lobbing deadly rockets into civilian centers of Israel. What am I missing here?

A map, for one thing. The residents of Gaza are who are being driven into the sea.

Said militia being isolated in a small sliver of coastline along the eastern Med, exerting no real influence beyond there and enjoying little international sympathy.

Said 'deadly' rockets being of small payload and still shorter range, proving more annoyances than an actual, large-scale danger.

They station their soldiers in civilian areas and store their weapons in civilian areas. Is Israel to avoid these areas, which hold the lives of Israelis in the balance?

Yes, and yes.

Is there any doubt in anyone's mind that if Hamas held the balance of power held by Israel that they would hesitate for even one second to launch a murderous attack on Israel?

Sorry, but you can't argue with something like this. Its too much fantasy and not enough substantive detail to take seriously.

Again, what am I missing? Sometimes there are shades of gray and sometimes there are murderous fanatics on one side and people trying only to build a permanent homeland on the other. This is one of those times.

You realize that the ones building "a permanent homeland" are doing so on land they effectively stole from the other side, right? Under those circumstances, some of the latter becoming 'murderous fanatics' is only to be expected. Please note the word "some".

Or are you laying the sins of the few at the feet of all? In which case Israel itself isn't worthy of survival. No country or culture is.

that was hilarious.

You really are a disreputable fellow.

Yet to GG, Hamas is not complict in these deaths, and the false equivalency of Hamas rockets and Israeli relatiation cements itself just as the Neo-Cons made our invasion of Iraq the "natural" reaction to Saddam Hussein "gassing his own people" (20 years earlier).

About false equivalency, yeah, I agree with you: there is no equivalency between a modern military and home-made Qassam rockets. And there isn't equivalency between the scope of destruction either.

Here's another example of false equivalency: the claim that Israel pulled out of Gaza=freedom for Gazans. No mention is made by Israeli apologists of Israeli control over land, air and sea; no mention is made of Israel continually refusing shipments of food and medical supplies.

You'd have others believe that the Israeli withdrawal granted the residents of Gaza complete, total and absolute freedom and that, well, the ingrates just started firing rockets at Israel for no good reason.

Bullshit. And you know it is, too.

But this is no more proof of the justification of the inherent actions than is Osama Bin Laden supporting Glenn's sympathies that the people of Gaza are under attack from an America-Israel "war on Gaza."

This is a garbled statement. I only wish to note that you put "war on Gaza" in quotes as if to somehow diminish that it's essentially a prison camp now under military attack (or, as we call it on Planet Earth, variously, an assault, a bludgeoning, a slaughter, collective punishment).

But whatever you call it, the last thing it is is justified.

OK, I'll bite.

You want a solution to what, exactly? Man's inhumanity to man in general? Or something a little more specific?

"Israel falls short of many ideals of democracy, and they can and should be critiqued for this."

Really? I've been watching you post for two weeks now, and I don't remember any critiques from you. What are you waiting for? Why are your rants one sided?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mgZZ3og1g0

"...Israel cannot remain a country whose identity is based in the sick ideology (the supposed superiority of one religion/ethnicity over another and the denial of the existence of Palestinians as a people) on which it was founded in 1948."

This is precisely what I have seen in Glenn's blog---a sizeable majority of the posters supporting his position are virulently opposed to the very existence of Israel. By the way, "Dr.Phil", Israel was not based on any ideology of superiority nor did it deny the existence of the right of Palestinian Arabs to a state of their own. Rather, it was based on the fact that due to repeated pogroms by Arabs against Jews in Palestine over 50 years, the two peoples could not live together at that time---a philosophy as to which Muslims had no objection as long as they were in the minority, i.e., in the Indian subcontinent. The Arabs were given over 60% of the land for their own state, but it was either all or nothing. They chose war and lost. They tried several other "do-overs" and lost again. So don't give us this simplistic hatred bullshit. And certainly let's not go into the "Jews view their religion as superior" bullshit either. No matter what you may say about the Israelis, they permit the free exercise of religion of all groups---can that be said about a single Arab nation?

Now can we please get away from the Israel must die dittoheads which GG attracts and start getting down to negotiating the deal to end all of this?