The other Arab states can't send them food. Israel has Gaza blockaded. The Israeli navy just rammed a ship trying to get food and medicine to them. Egypt won't do it because it is a US client state. Neither your or Dr. Amy seem to have any cognizance of the realities of the situation.

A long time ago I had a conversation with my grandfather about revenge and "getting back at the whiteman"( we are Native American)....his simple to the point answer settled it once and for all for me....his response was, "Yes the whiteman did terrible things, but it is not our way(revenge).

"That comparison is obscene. Israel is not targeting civilians, there is not mass starvation in Gaza, and it can hardly be suggested that no communication is being allowed from Gaza."

So it's fine to compare dud rockets that rarely hit anything but sand to hi-tech, guided weapons deliberately aimed at dense population centers (by pilots who face no enemies) that kill hundreds and maim others...most civilians. On the other hand it's NOT acceptable to mention that civilians are, in fact, targeted; that the populations is, in fact, being starved; that Western reporters (who could influence America!) are, in fact, banned.

"Israel spent about a billion dollars building bomb shelters in the south...With a 15-30 second warning system."

Palestinians have neither warning systems nor shelters. They were attacked when Israel knew they'd be sitting ducks.

Israeli apologists sound like Germans who took over homes owned by Jews. They complained about having only enough to eat 7 meals a day, causing them to suffer more than Warsaw ghetto "residents."

Arabs with broken/severed limbs enter over-crowded hospitals that, due to Israel's blockade, lack medicines. Israelis who merely "feel" afraid consider themselves equal victims.

What a pampered, heartless, racist people! Like Nazis, they think one of Theirs worth more than a thousand of the Other's.

myerslaw: "At partition in 1948, Palestinians WERE given a country - it's called Jordan."

Wrong. The 1947 (not 1948) U.N. Partition did not, in any sense, include Jordan, but was instead only with respect the territory then known as Palestine (and today known as Israel and the Palestinian territories). A map of the 1947 U.N. partition is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/israel_and_palestinians/key_maps/6.stm

myerslaw: "Had the Arabs won in 1948, there would have been NO "Palestinian State." Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon would simply have fought over control of the territory -- and they had for centuries.

Wrong again. Egypt (as a current nation-state), Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon didn't even exist until after WWI and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Those states were instead regions in the Ottoman Empire, and with its collapse WWI victors/middle east colonialists England and the France carved up the region into those nation - states. For the centuries before then during the Ottoman-era, the territory known as Palestine was generally at peace.

"If you know your history, then you would know where you're coming from."

-- Bob Marley

"... in reviewing German and Austrian history from the 1930's; how many rocket attacks did 'the Jews' launch against the German citizenry?"

According to pro-Israelers, that doesn't matter. The point-- they would make-- is that IF they had rockets Jews COULD have harmed Germany.

Also, since "proportionality" doesn't matter, it was entirely appropriate for Germans to collectively punish Jews during Kristollnacht after 1 Jew shot 1 German official.

Noting the similarities between Zionism and Nazis only "undermines" pro-Israelis who are used to shaming critics into silence.

Similarly, the days when calling someone an antisemite for criticizing Israel silenced them are over. In fact, it might soon become a badge of honor to be called an "anti-sem" since everyone knows its only tossed out when the truth about Israel is being told.

MerelyMortalMale: "What a pampered, heartless, racist people! Like Nazis, they think one of Theirs worth more than a thousand of the Other's."

Condemning the people of an entire country as "heartless" and "racist" is racist.

Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are monolithic entities - they are instead both groups of individuals. And there are many types of individuals in both groups, including, yes, heartless racists. Both groups also have many other types of individuals on both groups too, however, including compassionate non-racists.

I'm thankfully immune to the accusations that typically fly when pointing out that whatever the atrocities that have befallen the Palestinians that can be provably attributed to Israeli policies and citizens- and there's a considerable catalogue- "genocide" is not one of them.

For one thing, an ethnic genocide of the Arab Palestinians would necessarily entail the wider project of murdering all of the Arabs, something like 300 million of them. Pardon my skepticism, I don't think that's on the agenda.

In fact, I don't even think they want to exterminate the residents of Gaza.

A factual point-counterpoint on that specific question is welcome.

On a related note, I think Israel has approximately zero interest in pre-emptively pulverizing Arab and Persian population centers with nuclear weapons- which would of course crash the global economy, ruin economic infrastructure throughout the region for longer than the USA has been a country, irradiate the neighboring ecosystem with unpredictable but undoubtedly drastic and dire consequences, bring down the wrath of the entire world, and drive every Arab remaining alive in the region into a anti-Jewish homicidal rage that would at long last have obvious and total justification.

Even if you think that the the vast majority of the Jews of Israel and their political leaders are so treacherously immoral that they'd really like to do that, there are practical constraints on such a Doomsday Project.

Genocide is not mass murder, ill-treatment, massacres, or even pogroms. Genocide is eradication. To qualify as even a partially "successful" genocide- my God, what a loathsome juxtaposition of words- the deaths in Gaza would not total 500. They would total 500,000.

Once again: I've said what I've said. I haven't said what I haven't said.

I'm tired of hearing the term bandied about so casually- or levelled as a righteous accusation.

And just because Israel has the power to drop all border sanctions and its present boycott on providing power and aid, doesn't mean that they hold total responsibility for the corner that the residents of Gaza have been backed into. It's staggeringly cynical of the Arab governments to withhold any aid in getting that polity on its feet as a functioning civil society. And to think that the project of firing harrassment fire across the border to Israel could take precedence over securing independent sources of supplies and resources...I can't comprehend it.

I guess that the rationale behind it is that achieving a working state in Gaza might indicate that it's for the Arabs possible to succeed as a national entity with less than 100% of territorial Palestine. So the idea is, instead, to prove it can't be done.

Yes, I know it's terribly crowded. But it worked as long as the Israelis provided the infrastructure- even though I doubt they put much thought into maximizing the livability of the place. Now that it's part of the pan-Arab realm, where's the help?

Maybe I'm leaving out something terribly important, here. Can someone provide an outline of the facts that I might be missing, or grossly misconstruing? I'm listening, and willing to learn...