"lost the war" and any other typos.

to your tiny brainpan, babycakes.

That's just my WASPish read. :-)

Con, go back to your knitting and try to perfect the moss stitch or maybe that should be the Mossad stitch as you must know the pattern by now. Nearly everyone else does.

Either Israel has a right to live without rockets landing on her houses, or she doesn't. If she doesn't, you are denying Israel a basic right that every single other UN member nation enjoys. Since the only thing that separates Israel from the other nations is its Jewishness, you are singling her out for unequal (and less favorable) treatment based precisely on her Jewishness. And that is classic anti-semitism.

The problem with so many posters here is not criticism of Israeli policy, it's a delegitimization, treatment as an 'other,' and a removal of a right based solely on Jewishness.

smartest feline at the show. How she's wrinkled her pink little nose, sharpened her tiny nails which can extend to quite a length when the occasion demands, at the level of discourse on this thread. In all the years she's been looking at Salon with a supercilious stare, nothing has got her immaculate fur fluffed up quite so much as the invasion of Gaza. Never before has her pussy-cat brain directed her to write a letter or two. I bet her pet name is Princess.

What rights do the Palestinians have?

that I don't like you, babycakes. I wuv you.

Thanks, Maureen, for making my point for me ~

You do realize that Israel has been assasinating Palestinian leaders with air to ground missiles since the start of the intifada, don't you?

If Israel has a right to launch rockets and missiles into Palestinian territory, why don't the Palestinians enjoy the same right to return the fire of sophisticated modern US made missiles with primitive annoying rockets that cannot even make a decent crater?

Surface to air missiles for the Palestinians would stop Israel - they don't like to go against people who can fight back.

You're definitely more of the Palaeolithic type. You're now having a go at WASPS. I thought George W. Bush was the Zionists' best friend and here you are mocking white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Dear, oh dear, you're very muddled and throwing tantrums doesn't help.

What rights do the Palestinians have?

...

Well, what do you know? The very same ones, actually. Which is why Israel left Gaza in 2005. Dragged every last settler, soldier, and military piece of equipment out of there. "Gaza First" was the policy - turn Gaza over to the PA, help it be a success, and the West Bank would be next. Don't blame Israel if Gaza couldn't take 'yes' for an answer.

Some were very clever and the one I liked best of all was Lulu. She had lovely manners, did her own manicure with exquisite care but her fur did fluff up when annoyed. She never wrote to Salon or to any other site being perfectly contented in her own world. So, CatmomJ, I think that you too find the way of the world as it is today just dinky.

I agree the Palestinians should have the same rights as the Israelis, but the fact is they don't. They are citizens of no nation, have no right to travel even to the West Bank or even, to accept a Fulbright scholarship. They are not allowed to leave Gaza, ever, without Israel's permission. Nor are they allowed to export or import goods or services. True, in 2005, settlers stopped building homes and farms on their lands, but otherwise very little has changed for them. The simple fact is that Israel denies Palestinians in the occupied (or "disputed" if you prefer) territories, that it grants to Jewish settlers on the same land, including those who were in Gaza up until 2005.

Does any of this make an impression on you?

Any differences at all between firing missiles targeting terrorist militants and firing missiles randomly into Israeli neighborhoods or sending suicide bombers to blow up buses and schoolyards?

Just curious if you detect any other difference besides technological capability.

Does any of this make an impression on you?

...

Actually, yes it does. Which is why, as a means of fulfilling Palestinian nationalist aspirations (which I support), the rockets make no sense and are only counterproductive. The rockets started long before Hamas took control of Gaza, and they continued after the Gazans got what they wanted. That is, they wanted Israelis gone, fought for it by rocketing civilians, but then continued when Israel withdrew. So, the rockets couldn't have been solely for the purpose of liberating Gaza. When, precisely, were the Gazans planning to take control of their lives and build a society? The world poured money into Gaza and Israel left an industry, but then what? Again, don't blame Israel if the Gazans can't take 'yes' for an answer.

UN building in Gaza today where 700 civilians with no other safe place to go had sought refuge, although the building is used primarily for storing food and medicine. The UN building was hit twice, with a lapse of about half an hour between the first and second hit. When John Ging, the UN official in charge of the building, protested to the Israeli commander on the first occasion, he received an apology. That didn't mean much because, within a short time, the building was hit again and set on fire, prompting a BBC interviewer tonight to ask Minister Herzog if some of the Israeli commanders are out of control. Herzog denied that, of course, and kept repeating "We have apologised", as if any sentient being doesn't know what's going on. Herzog's father was born in Dublin and thus is entitled to an Irish passport! I'll say no more about that.

Was not, I think, the potential paradise you envision. It is a gigantic refugee camp with far too many people crammed into it (who used to live in current Israel or are the progeny of those who did) to be self-sustaining. As well, since Hamas took power it has been under a blockade which has made the idea of generating an economy simply impossible. It was this blockade that Hamas claims it wants to end, and it is this blockade that Israel refused to lift even during the ceasefire.

Does any of this make firing rockets at civilians justified? I would say emphatically no, and I would agree none of this deprives Israel of the right to security.

But by the same token, none of the acts of Hamas make the ongoing blockade of Gaza justified, much less the current slaughter. The idea that the Gazans were given a chance at a viable state by Israel but instead chose to fire rockets is simply propaganda. It is a perversion of the truth.