"Truly spoken like a man who has no "skin" in the game."

Like you. The deaths of thousands of people seems to excite you to a level that seems to indicate emotional problems. There are trolls here who applaud those deaths, yes. But none seem to do so as excitedly as you. Pervert.

OTOH the desire to kill is overwhelmingly Palestinian. Incompetence is not a defense or justification.

I suppose the numbers of those killed and injured (overwhelmingly Palestinian) supports this "contention."

Brilliant, as usual.

Mr Greenwald - I have been thinking about this subject quite a bit, and while I largely agreewith all you have said, I think the "non-state" aspect of the definition of terrorism is critical to this discussion. Without this element, I don't think you can make any distinction between any of this behavior and our own strategy and tactics in WWII.

We bombed civilian targets relentlessly, including of course our nuclear attacks on Japan. This strategy was explicitly intended to cause civilian casualties and break our opponents will to fight. Was that terrorism? Were those tactics inappropriate? It feels to me like you are simply raising the same arguments that people have been making on this point at least since then.

I'm not sure there is a good answer to your concerns. If a neighboring country were to relentlessly fire rockets into the US, I can only imagine our response. What would you do if a neighbor shot a rifle into your home a few times a day, and no dialog, reason or external actor deterred them?

Those who choose to launch attacks from population centers bear responsiblity for the consequences of those attacks.

I'm not saying I like this answer - but I don't see an acceptible alternative. Perhaps the problem here is that neither side does.

It is probably worth reprising this piece by Henry Siegman from The London Review of Books.

The Great Middle East Peace Process Scam

When Ehud Olmert and George W. Bush met at the White House in June, they concluded that Hamas’s violent ousting of Fatah from Gaza – which brought down the Palestinian national unity government brokered by the Saudis in Mecca in March – had presented the world with a new ‘window of opportunity’.[*] (Never has a failed peace process enjoyed so many windows of opportunity.) Hamas’s isolation in Gaza, Olmert and Bush agreed, would allow them to grant generous concessions to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, giving him the credibility he needed with the Palestinian people in order to prevail over Hamas.

Both Bush and Olmert have spoken endlessly of their commitment to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but it is their determination to bring down Hamas rather than to build up a Palestinian state that animates their new-found enthusiasm for making Abbas look good. That is why their expectation that Hamas will be defeated is illusory. Palestinian moderates will never prevail over those considered extremists, since what defines moderation for Olmert is Palestinian acquiescence in Israel’s dismemberment of Palestinian territory..(continues)..

Siegman's recommendation for getting off the merry-go-round? Glad you asked.

What is required for a breakthrough is the adoption by the Security Council of a resolution affirming the following: 1. Changes to the pre-1967 situation can be made only by agreement between the parties. Unilateral measures will not receive international recognition. 2. The default setting of Resolution 242, reiterated by Resolution 338, the 1973 ceasefire resolution, is a return by Israel’s occupying forces to the pre-1967 border. 3. If the parties do not reach agreement within 12 months (the implementation of agreements will obviously take longer), the default setting will be invoked by the Security Council. The Security Council will then adopt its own terms for an end to the conflict, and will arrange for an international force to enter the occupied territories to help establish the rule of law, assist Palestinians in building their institutions, assure Israel’s security by preventing cross-border violence, and monitor and oversee the implementation of terms for an end to the conflict.

But what Matt gets and you don't is that the actions are common-place in war.

Right, which is why Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, along with Additional Protocol II, specifically outlaw collective punishment.

yes, let's pin the blame where it truly belongs, the british and the UN who created this mess in the first place. how on earth did they escape so lightly?

"What would you do if a neighbor shot a rifle into your home a few times a day, and no dialog, reason or external actor deterred them?"

I have a question for you:

What would you do if people made the same baseless and completely inappropriate comparison dozens of times a day, as if they knew nothing of history or even current events?

"OTOH the desire to kill is overwhelmingly Palestinian. Incompetence is not a defense or justification."

We all get it: The Palestinians are uniformly evil, death-loving subhumans who deserve to be killed along with their families and neighbors. You don't have to keep making the same point over and over.

If you've read any of my diaries on Daily Kos, you'd know that one of the most important issues of our day is trying to interject some form of accountability on the Villager Pundits in our media who got everything wrong on Iraq and the economy, and yet continue to be treated like experts worthy of deep respect.

This is where Glenn is vital -- calling out frauds like Friedman for their nonsense.

But even Glenn has to grudgingly acknowledge (much as it must pain him) that simply because Friedman is a bloodthursty fool who loves murder, that doesn't automatically mean the war in Israe/Gaza is automatically dismissable.

Actions can be justified using logic or illogic, but an illogical justification does not preclude another, logical, one.

Otherwise the fact that Osama Bin Laden and Glenn Greenwald are both decrying the violence in Gaza would mean Glenn Greenwald is a terrorist Al Qaeda member.

The conservatives love smear-by-association logic. Our side should not, and can not, engage in such trivial logic fallacies.