Do normal people in your world have a 10 x 18 poster of Tom Friedman hanging over their bed as I assume is the case in the farrgut household?

What should Israel do? Try to hash out a deal with a terrorist organization? Try a ceasefire (oh right, tried both to no avail). The second the ceasefire ends, rockets come flying into Israel.

Spare us your knee-jerk, liberal BS. If people like you had been around during WW2, the war would STILL be going on. It's called WAR. Shit happens. MILLIONS of civilians died during WW1 and WW2. It's what happens, for the greater good.

Palestinians will die. It's their "leadership's" fault. What happened to Japan in WW2? Oh right, they surrendered. Grow up, and stop labeling everything as inhumane.

Funny how he won't admit it. At least Scooter is an honest genocidal maniac.

"All the more reason not to have Gaza be part of the eventual Palestinian state. "

If I control your movement, then you cannot move freely.

Therefore, you cannot be part of the Palestinian state in the West Bank, because you cannot get there.

Brilliant reasoning.

Like I already wrote, if the Israelis and Palestinians agree that the Gaza Strip should become part of Israel, then obviously the Palestinians should and would be allowed to travel to the West Bank.

You're starting to sound as dumb as a Republican.

Glen,

Richard Falk has noted some motives rarely heard in the main US media for Israel's assault on Gaza. These have to do with the upcoming Israeli elections (to keep far-right Netanyahu from winning PM), to try to remove Hamas as the party elected to govern Gaza, and to re-establish to all that the IDF has not lost its "mojo" post-Lebanon 2006.

I suggest there is also another reason. We have learned that Israel has been prevented from striking Iran only by the refusal of the US military to allow their jets to fly over Iraqi airspace, and turning down requests to refuel their attacking aircraft. I believe that the Israeli government is now trying a last ditch effort to goad other Islamic nations to attack it. They are betting that Iran et al. will not be able to stand idly by and watch their Islamic brothers and sisters be massacred by the IDF with no real justification or cause. And the IDF welcomes such an attack because it will provide the opening -- the casus belli -- for massive retaliation, including and especially against Iran.

May this provocation fail entirely. Thank you Glen for your unsurpassed voice on many issues critical to our republic.

is a dead Palestinian. After nineteen days and the best weaponry that Uncle Sam can provide, the chicken-hearted Israeli army still hasn't achieved its objective in the Gaza Ghetto although it has killed over 900 people. Not bad going, considering it took a few months for the Germans to conclude their killing spree in the Warsaw Ghetto.

In fact, the Israei Navy is crowing that its intercepted an Iranian ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. You never know what those evil Iranians could be up to because they're not full of the milk of human kindness like the Zionists at home and abroad, particularly in America where, despite all the ululating about Israel's enemies, those same Zionists seem determined to stay while the population of Israel remains stagnant. Maybe they'll be tempted to budge when their land of heart's desire extends its boundaries right down to the Gaza sea-front and then decides that the West Bank has also been bequeathed to them by the Lord Almighty. Why stop there? Those filthy Ay-rabs have more land than they need and "the chosen people" must get plentiful supplies of water. I don't suppose there's any mention of oil in the Bible but you'd never know what these fellows with the ringlets and the flat hats might resurrect. There will be no more wailing at the Wailing Wall then.

Of course, I'm one of those Europhonies (the EU consists of 27 states of different cultures, languages and backgrounds) but I do know my nationality and that my first affiliation is to my own country. This is very different from Zionist Americans who apparently find themselves more emotionally attached to a foreign country which is only 60 years old than to the United States. In 1920 Lord Curzon, Vice-Roy of India, was very uneasy about the Balfour Declaration and had a good idea of the territorial ambitions of the meagre number of Jewish settlers in Palestine at the time. That was long before the Holocaust. The aggressiveness of Israel's attitude to Palestinian Arabs shows that Curzon was shrewd. As a colonialist, he saw what others couldn't see but it takes one to know one. Israel has colonial ambitions but it cannot create its own without American financial subsidies totaling billions of dollara; Israel is a theocracy although the founders of the United States supported religious freedom for its citizens; Israel is an apartheid State which treats Israeli Arabs as inferiors and yet the "big wheels" in Washington line up to greet former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa any time he comes to town. If Americans can't see the hypocrisy, others can.

"conflict to an Israeli-Palestinian one, and in this instance, more specifically, Israel-Hamas."

It has been an Israeli Palestinian conflict for 40 years plus. It is not just a specifically Hamas Israel war. There are Palestinians throughout the West Bank in conflict with the state of Israel. There are half a dozen non-Hamas affiliated organizations in conflict with the state of Israel. The hamas-Israel war is largely in your head. You don't know what you're talking about.

I am curious what you think:

Does Palestine have as much a "right to exist" as Israel?

Does Israel have a greater "right to exist" than Palestinians?

Of those who vote for Hamas, the explanation is likely one of "pathology," ....

You mispelled "self-determination". You want them to vote for someone else, give them a reason to vote for someone else. So far, the Israeli attacks seem to have done the opposite. But that does tend to be true whenever you beat someone with a stick until they agree with you....

Cheers,