Maureen, you must confuse me with another poster, as I have never accused you of being ant-Semitic. All I said is that your post comparing Jews to Nazis minimizes the possibile legitimacy of any of your posts.

As for civilian deaths in Gaza, they are horrible. But the real culprit is Hamas. Do you believe the firing of missiles by Hamas at Israeli citizens is justified? Are you just as outraged by those actions? Whether or not you are, what do you believe Israel could do legitimately to counter the attacks? Are you really so naive as to believe that if Hamas won't respond to force, it will respond to negotiations with the very country it has sworn to destroy?

Do you believe Hamas is to blame for hiding smuggled missiles in residential complexes and mosques. When secondary explosions of these missiles kill Palestinian civilians, are you just as outraged? You talk about supposed anti-Palestinian bias in the States, but don't you see the pro-Palestinian bias of the BBC and newspapers such as the Guardian?

I have just posted a piece on my blog (www.suekatz.com) entitled:

Let Bernie Madoff Do His House Arrest in Gaza

Sue

I don't take any of you dishonest Zioclowns seriously.

Oh look, how timely, someone else looking for a mark in order to play The Game:

Just what is a measured response to terror? What should a country do when an adjacent territory subjects it to repeated rocket attacks which are clearly intended to terroize its citizens? What would the US or any other country do if any adjacent country repeatedly attacked it? What would the US or any other country do when all attempts at diplomacy failed...when truces and cease fires were repeatedly broken? How do you stop someone from terrorizing you?

-- Splasher

Why, the way this same garbage is repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, it's almost like it's PROPAGANDA!

The Jewish people's sad history in Europe from the Spanish Inquisition, to the pogroms of the Russian Czars, to the mass killings of Jews by the German Nazis, hold in common a culture of overt hatred no where comparable to that of the Middle East's history with Jewish communities from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age.

If you all wish to go on back and forth pouring salt into old wounds, or invoking ancient guilts, go ahead, I wonder, will any of you on any side ever profit productively from any of it?

Continue the quarrel...you are all of you a sinking ship of fools.

That comments that equate Israel and Jews with the worst filth of humanity ever are permitted even encouraged here and most opinions that say 'nay' to that are deleted and the posters names turned off.

I'm not sure of what each state's laws are but you could make a case that Salon permits racist hate speech intentionally. It would be at minimum a libelous offense in many European Union countries.

Perhaps Salon needs to take a closer look at what it lends its name to if it hopes to maintain its status as a somewhat neutral yet partisan advocate for dialog. Additionally Salon perhaps needs to have a 3rd party ombudsman review these threads and the complaints that come from them.

I for one will be investigating with California's AG what the definition of all this is.

Thank you.

When you say stuff like "The Palestinians have chosen to adopt Hamas as it's official leadership instead of disarming them. And no, that doesn't mean the the innocents being killed "deserve" to die. Nobody deserves to die for the crimes of others. But the attacks Israel is making on Hamas in Palestine are as well-justified as the attacks the U.S. made on Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. Afghanistan had no direct involvement in the attacks, but they were harboring the people who did and refused to take action against them," you are saying they deserve it.

You should be against the killings of innocents in Afghanistan, too. Are you saying Americans should abandon all of our morals and cultural beliefs because we get hit by terrorists? Don't the "terrorists win" then? I say despicable acts should engender us to hold our own anti-murder convictions even more closely to our hearts!

Thanks for answering my question -- your number is exactly what I recall having previously read, but I didn't have a source for it.

Most reasonable Americans agree that Israel has the right to defend itself, and most reasonable Americans might also point out that retaliation (against those who are actually guilty) is one step removed from "self-defense". But, retaliation against the innocent, or "collective punishment" is too far removed from even the most elastic definition of self-defense. Americans don't support this -- but they need to be told that it's happening.

That's why I'm surprised these numbers are not clearly presented to the public.

I think we are within our rights asking whether it is absolutely strictly necessary to kill 500 (and counting) people in response to the murder of four people. There simply comes a point where the "necessity" argument cannot be maintained.

the point is that Israel has been far too patient with the terrorist group hamas. they should have taken them out the day hamas took over the leadership of gaza.

going back to 2005, Israel should have kindly escorted the one million palestinians to the jordanian border and never given up their land to begin with. they should not have listened to the American state departmetn and the u.n.

I thought I understood your post, but apparently your message was less direct than I thought. Do I hate America too, now?

As if to demonstrate, your corrective headline refers to "Israel-fisting." I'll avoid the tempatation to interpret that.

2 or 3 instances today.

I know there are many pro Israel rallies planned in the US this week. But frankly, the people who need to know about them already do and putting up that information here worries me that some of you would show up with guns and fire bombs. But I suspect that putting the fear into Jews is a bit of what you had in mind.