I have a fair amount ,waning, of respect for Matt as a moderator, tough job,  but
interrupting the flow of a good conversation and starting a nonsensical discussion
( superstitious dread ) about a private marriage was outlandish.  Sweeping the
Israel - Palestine issue under the rug once again is not what I would expect and
definitely not a route to any understanding of the problem.  Arrogance is not a
solution. Get a grip Matt.

Commenters here have grasped the essential intellectual, and moral dishonesty in the argument being made by apologists for Israel’s behavior:  A community of people may have an abstract “right” to exist as a nation,  and therefore an abstract “right” to defend that “right” to community. But the leaders and people of a nation have no inherent affirmative right of “self-defense” for violent or repressive actions against others in theory or reality.

Neither the people and leaders of Israel, nor of the US, have any inherent right to act violently and oppressively against any person or group of people, even in claimed “self-defense”.  Israel and the US have transgressed what is acceptable under any standard of human rights embraced by any sane and morally competent person. It is the rest of the world, therefore, that has the right and obligation to define for Israel what constitutes legitimate self-defense, and to set limits and to punish Israel’s behavior and individual politicians, military leaders, as well as individual citizens and troops, for transgressing those limits

This must be true because it is exactly the argument that underlies the genuine right of self-defense a nation has in response to attack by another claiming “self-defense”.  Moreover, this is the argument the US hypocritically turns on it’s head as we make war in Iraq and Afghanistan and our leaders claim our victims have no right of “self-defense”. Just as Israel hypocritically does to wage war against the Palestinians.  Both aggressors are claiming to be the “victims” and asserting their supposed right of self-defense.  At the same time they propagandistically define legitimate self-defense in opposition to even illegal military aggression as “terrorism” per se.

The American people are starting to perceive this.  While the nation-state of Israel has a right to exist in the abstract, when morally bankrupt Israeli politicians and military leaders act violently with impunity they and Israel are subject to the judgment and punishment of the world community.  The terms of the debate are changing to conform to reality and to genuine moral and legal standards, as they should. 

People are turning away from the fraudulent, propagandistic frame being advanced by the alphabet soup of Israeli propaganda groups like AIPAC, American neo-con Republicans like Rep. Eric Cantor and pseudo-liberal Democrats like Rep. Brad Sherman and Sen. Ron Wyden politicians that uncritically defend Israel’s unacceptable behavior to gain political power and financial support, and biased media outlets that slant and suppress news that would provide the American people with a balanced perspective on Israel’s behavior. 

Here and around the world, people are starting to demand legitimate judgment and punishment. In most cases, this should be political and economic, in specific cases judicial, and only as a last resort genuinely defensively military. (Under international law with regard to human rights, the US military and politicians should be guaranteeing safe passage of aid convoys directly to Gaza rather than being complicit in thwarting them.)  That’s why we see the shrill reactions, verging now on psychotic, from Israeli leaders and their American propagandists inside and outside our government who are losing their influence and privilege.  And the total impotence of an Administration that is, as Chris Hedges has pointed out, is nothing but a hollow PR campaign for a brand anyway. 

We must continue to bring the light of truth that Israel’s right of action is wholly limited to that legitimately judged to be respectful of the human rights of all people.  We must do this not only to prevent Israel from engaging in behavior that further harms their victims, but which also is self-destructive and could lead to dangerous backlash against those Israelis and Jewish people who do NOT support Israel’s immoral actions.

I rather like the idea that our homeland is planet
Earth, including among other areas, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf of Mexico.

I recognize that my forebears intruded here in the South West Pacific/Indian Ocean upon indigenous worlds, and that those cultures were then threatened. That was a recipe, given the consequences of certain dominant ways of thinking, for egregious and unacceptable wrongs. Wrongs were not limited to Indigenous Peoples.

Despite everything, we hope we now can be friends and fellow human beings made possible by resorting at the first instance to justice, not violence, overt or otherwise, to solve problems.

History is only a context of despair when we allow it to be by resorting time and again to violence. Many Israelis, and perhaps too, many Palestinians, or at least their governments, seem locked into the logic of stupidity,if not as illustrated by recent events, outright criminality.

Isn’t interesting how once again we have to follow
the agenda, without regard to the significance and
importance of the items?

The moderator derailed this show when he cut short the discussion about Israel’s boarding of a peaceful ship in international waters.  The important issue he switched to. . .a politicians failed marriage.  This seems like the sort of thing you would expect from Fox “News”.