Israel is going to have to make peace with the Palestinians or face the prospect of two inevitable trends. One is the demographics - within the next 20 years there will be more Palestinian Israelis than Jewish Israelis. Two is that with cheap and mass produced components for gps, computers, remote control toys, robotics and AI, advanced weapon systems will be available to a wide range of players even with a low budget. When you kill civilians you motivate the targets to do something about it.

The longer this game is played the worse Israel's odds get and the less sympathy or understanding it has from the rest of the world.

You really think this is a good thing for Israel?

It is a good thing for the arms industry.

How the hell is that happening? Salon eliminated the anonymous feature about a year ago, IIRC.

They seem to have largely ignored the lessons of history hoping that somehow US will continue to provide support for their policies. Us may do so, but they forget that no World Power remains a World Power for long, and the influence of US is receding and its military superiority would also not last for long. So instead of trying to create more friends, Israel is going to create more enemies ensuring that the very fear that they are trying to escape will become a reality. Meanwhile, the rest of the world suffers from their and US's remarkable short-sightedness.

Several people have commented that there is no solution to the problem. I am not sure that there is no solution. I am of the opinion that even the most difficult problems have a solution, especially those that unresolved have the potential of blowing up the world. The difficult issue of Jerusalem can be resolved by diving it and the right of return resolved b ensuring a symbolic right of return (with Israel recognizing the right of return of a small number of Palestinians).

And it could be made to work. We forget that only 60 years ago Western Europe was divided bitterly and now they live in relative harmony. The only thing is that I do not wish to see that the world goes through another World War before we accept the inevitable.

peeps1:

"I am not "rewarding" Hamas. By your logic, the only thing any thinking or feeling person can do is support Isreal or they are contributing to the death of children."

There are not only two choices.

Of course you are rewarding Hamas. They use their own children as human shields precisely so the American Left will bemoan the loss of innocent lives. If people made it clear that there could be no negotiations or concessions of any kind unless and until Palestinians stopped deliberately placing their OWN people in the line of fire, they'll just keep doing it.

I'm wondering if there is any other time in recorded history where a group of people has used their own children as human shields. I can't think of any. Can you?

"Where's a good anthrax producer when you really need one?"

Notice how, in any ethnic clash, leftists always come down on the side of the demented suicidal primitive, and against the civilized? When I was young, the leftists I went to college with favored Pol Pot over the intellectuals he massacred. Today it's Mugabe over the displaced farmers and jihadist terrorists over the people who have won half the Nobel Prizes ever awarded.

Why don't they all just surrender to the nearest carjacker and get the hell out of the way of those of us trying to build an actual society?

Once again you prove that Salon.com is not only worth of existing, but well above the usual intellectual mediocrity that afflicts most of the American media.

A. Dalmau

A former Israeli air-force pilot spoke on the BBC today, calling Israeli actions in Gaza terrible crimes and calling on President Elect Obama not to be a slave to Israel and AIPAC. As a former fellow IDF officer who has witnessed first hand the genocidal conduct of Israel against the Palestinian people I'd like to command my brother-in-arms for his decency and courage. I had it easy-as a US citizen who volunteered to serve in the IDF I returned to my native California, heart broken and disgusted, never to set foot in Israel again. Captain Shapira will have to go back to Israel and deal with being an outcast, although I know for a fact that many of my fellow officers and brothers in arm are sick to their stomach at Israel's horrific crimes.

Israel came to be out of anti-semitism, the kind that led to the systematic murder of 6 million Jews in Europe.

There would be no need for a Jewish state if there were no anti-semitism. Israel could be a secular democratic state if it were not for anti-Semitism.

There would be no war in Gaza if not for ongoing anti-Semitism.

It's hard to believe that a claim that the Holocaust is a distant, irrelevant memory is naive -- it seems more a way to justify the current Islamist anti-Semitism, to pretend that anti-Semitism is not STILL a force that Israel and Jews need to protect themselves from. The only reason that more Israeli citizens haven't been killed by Hamas rockets is that Hamas hasn't gotten its hands on more effective machinery. Israel cannot afford for Hamas to become as effective as the Third Reich.

On page 40, there are 2 posts by Anonymous, which is currently impossible through the user-interface. Has Salon been hacked (and by an imbecile, at that)? As nasty as things get around here, it's still better without anonymous posters, as proven by its remarks about anthrax.

Everyone from Ben Gurion to Sharon to every Israeli soldier has made quite clear what Israel's goals are: kill all the Palestinians and take their land. Over and over they spoke and wrote this clearly, yet not 'defender' of Israel will ever admit it, and when anyone points this out, they are said to be anti-Israel. Hmm, quote a person and be said to be against them. Repeat clearly articulated goals, and be labeled as an enemy. So THAT'S where Cheney and Rove learned it.