Don't care about what happens over there and, frankly, don't care if the Israelis and Palestinians blow themselves off the face of the planet. Most Americans are tired of the conflict and bloody acts of revenge that will never end, the unwillingness on both sides to compromise.

This American atheist has no vested interest in either party's claims to Jerusalem - it's simply a piece of real estate and a nigh uninhabitable one at that. The actions of both sides are monstrous, venal and pointless; neither deserves our support or sympathy. There are two reasons America is in this game at all: because of oil and the potential for political instability in the Middle East to threaten its supply, and because of the illusion that there is a biblical significance to the existence of Israel.

It's hard to care about people who insist it's their right to kill those they disagree with.

The difference between Hamas and Israel is more than a little bit like the difference between the IRA and the UK. The IRA was the product of hundreds of years of unjust rule by the British, of their suppression of national and religious feelings that would, in the end, not be suppressed, and finally, of the blind incompetence of the imperial government in the matter of the Potatoe famine. The was the cause of the Irish diaspora that led to. among other things, the abortive Fenian invasion and the deep hatred of Britain among Irish-Americans.

Yet, push come to shove, how did we choose, German militarism and later Nazism or British democracy, in the great wars of the last century? And who do we choose now? Do we go with the Islamists or do we go with the Israelis? The choice was, of course, that all that clear cut as we look back. Pat Buchanan seems odd when he rehearses the arguments of Joe Kennedy, and Lindburg, and the Isolationists --and the CPUSA in 1940. In the end one has go go with the guys feelings, and sorry, I am not with you.

"Much of the rest of the world is outraged by Israel's assault on Gaza. But the United States -- the beacon of democracy, the champion of freedom, a nation founded on revolutionary anti-colonialism -- is applauding it."

Let's break this down, shall we? Certainly, the EU, Russia, China, the UN -- they are all decidedly more stern in their language about Israel's Gaza incursion than is the U.S. But of course all those bodies are in essential agreement with the U.S. and Israel; that Hamas is a terrorist organization that must be stopped from firing missiles into Israel. "Outrage" is hardly the word for the mainstream views of those parts of the world. The Russians in particular have shown us how they'd approach small nation-states that they regard as terrorist enemies. Like Chchnya. China? That's the model for open-minded internationalism? Come on. Even the Arab world has a serious problem with Hamas. Yes, there are some segments in the world that regard Israel with "outrage." Those are the outlier groups. Most of the world, including the U.S., regards Israel's incursion tactics with "caution."

And, as for the second half of Gary Kamiya's risible assertion? That the U.S. is "applauding"? What Secretary Condoleezza Rice has said is that a cease-fire should be reinstated, immediately. She is not "applauding" Israel's military. She'd like it to stop. Hamas has, for weeks, indicated that it has no intention of stopping.

Are we now to take seriously any complaints from Hamas that Israel is causing the deaths of children as collateral casualties in Gaza? It cannot be. Hamas is sending unguided missiles into Israel, designed to land just about anywhere, and it has the gall to complain about Israel's accidental killing of Palestinan civilians?

I think it is things like this that reveal people like Gary Kamiya as completely dishonest hacks, bent on a far-left political agenda. And that much is certainly not news.

Whatchoutalkinbout Xanthro ?

Georgia with peaches and Carter or Georgia the second homeland of the Jews that BZ and Israle used to poke Russia in the eye with?

-- something stinks

I know ignorance is your standard state of being, but even you know that it's the State of Georgia.

You may be ignorant of the fact that Cherokee land was stolen in Georgia because gold was found there, and that not only do the Cherokee still exist, we have quite a large number of people.

We'd like our land back now.

We even have a Supreme Court decision stating the land is ours and we can't be removed from it.

Little good that did.

Once again, oddly, I don't see it being given back.

You'll just resort to some stupidity like blaming Jews for something wholly unrelated to them, like you did in this post.

Heck, don't have to go that far; imagine that a dozen or so arabs who don't believe in the legitimacy of the US and its economic expansionism manage a sneak attack that kills a few thousand Americans; the reaction of america would be enormous. anybody who was an arab would be at risk from both the government and "patriots". even anybody who could vaguely be compared to an arab because they wore a turban or something. demagogue politicians could easily whip the populace into a frenzy giving them carte blanche to not only quash their political opponents at home but engage in military adventures abroad under the vague rubric of preemptive self-defense against an imminent attack. long standing and almost axiomatic human rights like habeas corpus and prohibition of torture could even be repealed without the public rebelling. (yes, i know it's farfetched, but it could happen!)

yes, this could happen, even in America! so give the Israelis the courtesy of not expecting them to behave any better than you and your fellow citizens, please.

of course, however, israel is deserving of all this strife, because many indigenous residents had to move a dozen miles or even more when the white men arrived, either because they were forced to, because they thought they were forced to, because the new folks bought the property, or because they didn't want to live in the neighborhood when the Jews moved in; and others were killed. thus the country should be dismantled and the property given back to the folks who say their relatives used to live there 50 years ago, even if they can't prove that their ancestors sold the place. after all, if they were a legitimate country like the US, the israelis' ancestors would have so thoroughly massacred the indigenous population that the question would be moot; in addition this would avoid the thorny question of whether the property had been purchased or stolen, as there isn't a need to purchase property from somebody you've killed.

and this is why we're morally justified in requiring israel to live up to different rules than we expect of ourselves.