Palestinian Arabs are not a seperate gene type or culture from (Trans)Jordons, Syrias, Iranians, etc...so no “genacide” here.
Safardic(sp) Jews were ethnically cleansed from their homes, where are all those “refugees” and why don’t Jews count and why do you act as if Jews were never in the mideast? Ever heard of the masacre of the Medina Jews? Who got all the “booty” from their “cleansing”?
The usual producers being punished by non-producers.
With Egypt on the border with Gaza why aren’t they opening their doors to the so-called Palestian refugees.......

TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT WHO IS IN-CHARGE OF THE ALL THE ACTION IN ISRAEL’S DEMOCRACY “FOR JEWS ONLY”!

TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT ISRAEL’S “DEMOCRACY REPRESENTATIVES” WHO ARE WORKING HARD TO PROMOTE HUMAN RIGHTS, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF PEACEFUL PROTESTS AGAINST APARTHEID POLICIES.

ITS ISRAEL’S DEFENCE FORCES (IDF) WHO ARE FAMOUSLY KNOWN FOR THEIR BRUTAL MURDERS & KILLINGS OF INNOCENT PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS (CHRISTIAN & MOSLEM).

ARE THESE IMAGES FAKE?

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11& ar=739

A powerful and sober piece in the service of truth and justice (part 3)
============================================
For you are crafting your own destruction.

You have been so effective in this great national project because you work from experience. Even the most courageous, principled, and sensible people, as you learned, cannot withstand a concentration camp indefinitely. At some point, as the Holocaust historians have tracked with such pathos, humanity breaks down. Individual heroism may survive as memoirs, but order, humanity, and finally human feeling decays into factional squabbles and man’s inhumanity to man. You learned all too well and bitterly how this cauldron can melt down the very fabric of a society and shatter people. The lesson is burned, literally, into your national memory. And you are bringing those lessons to bear, attempting to purge Zionism’s tragedy by bringing Gaza to ruin.

But if you actually reap the chaos you are crafting for the Palestinians, you will find that no one else is responsible for these five million civilians except you.

So what will you do, Israel, with five million people living under your rule, when you can no longer pretend to the world that you intend to negotiate with them? What will you do with people you detest, and who finally utterly detest you, when visions of coexistence have finally failed? You will be the only sovereign power over them. You will be able neither to digest them nor to vomit them out. And they will stare at you.

And we will stare at you, too.

Because there will be no one left to blame, and no one to take care of them, except you.

* Virginia Tilley is a professor of political science, a US citizen working in South Africa, and author of The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock (University of Michigan Press and Manchester University Press, 2005). She can be reached at tilley at hws dot edu.

A poweful and sober piece in the service of truth and justice (part 2)
============================================
But here is news for you, Israel. The Native Americans haven’t given up to this day. Damaged and reduced as they are, they know their history and remember their grievances. They are marginal only because they are one percent of the US population. The Palestinians are five-million strong, equal to you in numbers. And they live within your borders. When their leadership ruins itself, bashing each other like rams fighting to the death, they will finally turn their five million pairs of burning eyes on you, for you will be the only power left over them. And you will be defenseless, because your paper shelter - your Fatah or PA quislings - will be damaged goods, cracked vessels, discredited, gone. And it will then be you and those you have disenfranchised - you and the Palestinians, in one state, with no Oslo or Road Map myth to protect you. And by then, they will truly hate you.

Then perhaps it will dawn on you what you have done, when the disintegration of Palestinian national unity spreads out like a tsunami through the Middle East, meeting up with the tsunami spreading out from Iraq, to lay the region waste and rebound on you.

Watching you create this catastrophe for yourself, we think you are simply suicidal. We could just watch, but your road to ruin promises too much suffering to too many people. Still, to avert your unilateral suicide pact with the Palestinians, to whom can we turn?

We could appeal to Hamas at last to mobilize the rank and file, who alone have the capacity to launch civil disobedience on the mass scale necessary to paralyse Israel’s iron fist, but Hamas has no experience with this method, and now its statesmen are cornered by the guns you gave to Fatah thugs.

We could appeal to the leader of the Fatah thugs, Mr. Abbas, shuffling at the feet of Israeli power, to find some spine. Or to the ubiquitous Mr. Erekat, who never had a political vision in his life, to develop one overnight.

We could appeal to the Fatah thugs to reject Mr. Abbas and Mr. Erekat and the fat cement contracts you gave them to build the Wall that imprisons them, and seek a high road they have never glimpsed.

We could appeal to the microscopic PFLP and DFLP, clutching their old programs too stale to chew and consumed by their acrid, decades-old bitterness and rivalry with Fatah, to lift their heads at long last beyond the old and new grievances.

We could appeal to the US, but no one bothers to do that.

We could appeal to the EU, but no one bothers to do that, either.

We could appeal to the world, but it only stands aghast.

We could appeal to the world media, but it is frozen with its ass in the air.

We can only appeal to you, Israel. To think what you are doing, if not to care.

(to be continued)

A sober piece in the service of truth and justice! (part 1)
===========================================
When There’s No One Left to Blame
What Are You Going to Do Now, Israel?
By VIRGINIA TILLEY

Johannesburg, South Africa

What are you going to do now, Israel?

Now that three small boys have been killed by assassins’ bullets, and a Hamas judge dragged from his car and murdered, perhaps you are pleased. The Palestinians are finally succumbing to your plots, you think. The long-planned bottle has finally been sealed, in which the “drunken cockroaches” can only crawl around, shooting each other.

Maybe you are sitting back in your national chair, rubbing your hands together in triumph, watching the Palestinians finally turn on each other, slowly becoming what you always claimed they were. Maybe you are repelled, secure in your sense of superiority.

But have you thought about what you are you going to do, if Palestinian leadership you despise finally disintegrates?

You have brought them to this pass, of course. You worked for decades to achieve exactly this. You bribed, terrorized, expelled, maimed or killed their leadership, banned or killed their visionaries and philosophers, fanned and funded Hamas against Fatah or Fatah against Hamas, trashed their democracy, stole their money, walled them in, put them on a “diet”, derided their claims, and lied about their history to the world and to yourself.

But what are you going to do, Israel, if five million Palestinians are finally living leaderless under your sovereignty? What will you do, when they lose their capacity to negotiate with you? Have you thought that, within the territory you control, they are as many as you? And that now you are destroying their unified voice? Have you thought about what will happen to you if they truly lose that voice?

Maybe you really believe that, if you only feed Fatah money and guns, Fatah will reclaim power from the Hamas and restore the craven puppet Palestinian government of your dreams. Maybe you actually believe that Fatah can revive the wreck of Oslo, step out of the rubble of PA offices, and reclaim the driver’s seat of the Palestinian nation as before. Maybe you are telling yourself that, with just a few more inter-factional scuffles and assassinations and little more starvation, the entire Palestinian people will turn on Hamas and eject it from power in favor of grinning Mr. Abbas.

But why would you believe all this, when the only other test-case, Iraq, is in ruins and the US and UK are desperately trying to flee?

Do you really still live so deeply in your own fantasies that you believe Palestinian resistance is just the product of bad or obdurate leadership? That no collective memory of expulsion and dispossession sustains the spirit of collective resistance that will always and inevitably transcend that leadership? Do you really believe that, if only you can crush or co-opt Hamas and Fatah, five million people will simply disappear forever from your world–trail off across the Jordanian or Egyptian borders into the endless desert, clutching clothes, kids, and tarnished mementos, in some great reprise of 1948?

Do you actually think that, if the international community finally lets you off the hook of negotiating with the people you have dispossessed and discredited, you will somehow walk free at last, your crimes against them forgotten?

We know you are still pursuing the old, fatal, futile fantasy: finally to redeem the Zionist dream by demolishing Palestinian nationalism. To break Palestinian national unity on the rocks of occupation. To reduce the Palestinians to Indians on reservations who decline into despair, alcoholism and emigration. To make them irrelevant to you.

(to be continued)

I can only imagine that some of these kneejerk reactionaries are so young or so brainwashed, or racist that they have forgotten how Isreal came into being. It was founded by terrorists using terrorist tactics. As one poster claimed that no Isreali has ever strapped bombs to their own body that is true. They didn’t even have that much honor or integrity. Instead they left timed bombs in such places as the Star of David Hotel and killed people. They used the same tactics and weapons that the Palestinians now use.

No country has the “right” to exist. It has no more validity than does the Divine Right of Kings. If that were true then one need dig up an old map of the world from the 40’s or 50’s. How many of those countries are still around? If they had the right to exist why don’t they?

Isreal is stolen land. The Zionists are theives and terrorists and anyone posting here claiming that the Isreali’s have the right to use genocide obviously has never been very far from home. Get your ass out into the world and see what it is like to be oppressed. Heaven knows there are enough people out there who live it on a daily basis.

I want someone here to explain how using helicopters, tanks, rockets, bulldozers, airplanes on a daily basis along with kidnapping, selective assasination, and incarceration without charge indefinitely is justified against a population mostly unarmed. How do you justify the killing of the large number of children? What each side is doing is wasteful and useless. But I sure as hell see more justification on the Palestinians side than I do with the Isreali’s.

People ask where all the money has gone that has been given to the Palestinians? First of all it has been like pissing in the ocean when comparing with need versus what has been given. How about where is all the money and arms we’ve given Isreal and what was it used for? Where is all the money we’ve spent in Iraq? There is graft and corruption everywhere, including this country but that does not excuse anything. Go look at the pictures! Read the description of how these Palestinians are forced to live in a land that has been their’s as long as it has been the home of Jews. Anyone who says that Arabs and Jews have been enemies forever is ignorant of the history of the area. Jews are Arabs but with a different religion. They lived in harmony up until the Crusades. Europeans have always treated Jews worse than any Arabs have ever treated them.

This must end or it will put all of us to the test if it is not resolved. But we can not either turn a blind eye or take sides. They act like children and we must find some way to assist them in finding a way to resolve it so everyone gets what they need, not what they want!

Happy Chanuka, Ms Rose.
May I become a bit uptight, just a bit.  Please read your history people, there is no Palestine, never was and will never be.  If you wish to use that word use its proper form Philistia given by Rome to poke fun at the Israelites.  Around 70AD after the fall of Jerusalem.
Arafat was an Egyptian, the rest of those people are Jordanians, Lebanese, Syrians, and just about any other Arab nationality.
Why they don’t leave this “terrible place”, two reasons:
1- Like I said before this is the only place where they are treated like people. 
2- The other Arab nations don’t want them back.
Don’t want to believe me, read Hemingway and you will see, not even the dogs lived in that place call Canaan that ‘s how bad it was until the Children of Israel arrive again and started to turn the desert into a garden again.
Allow me to give you one more bit; in 1972 at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur instead of acting drastically they choose to be as careful of life as always, but they needed help, Israel, they let us take pics of one their facilities.
They could have saved themselves at any cost but their believes demanded other course of action so they showed us nuclear devices been fitted to F-4 jets.  The targets, the capital cities of a number of Arab nations.  That was a plead for help, the message was simple; we do not want to do this but we will if we have too, no more Treblinkas.
We provided every piece of material they needed and they put the nuclear devices away.  That is why any mouth piece of CAIR makes me laugh.  It is ironic to hear the same madness spoken by the Arab street mouthed by folks in this country but the new Zoan is at hand, behold the time is here.

Bill W. Vogt,

You are the epitome of an ignorant bigot.  Thanks for publicly volunteering that fact.  If I were you, I’d be more concerned about myself than the Jews.

David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

The Israeli government is a kind of ‘golem’ built by the Zionists, and used by them to further certain aims that, if they were more widely known, would not be supported even by most Israelis, nevermind Americans.  In fact, the best-informed and most consistent opposition to such criminally cold-blooded policies and actions as Chris Hedges writes about here comes from citizens of Israel who are themselves getting the same sorts of pressure and intimidation from the extreme right-wing as is seen more and more in the U.S., where the corporate national security state performs essentially the same role.
Imperialists here seek global hegemony.  They will be glad to have their Zionist counterparts act as “local” hegemons in the Middle East, with nuclear terror the principal “ace-in-the-hole” for both sets of interlocked ‘directorates’.......a threat they mean to actually ‘deploy’ soon as a “demonstration” of their determination to be THE dominant presences in their respective areas of intended-to-be total control. 
Another thing these groups have in-common is their cynical use of religion to cloak the completely materialistic foundations of their joint project.  And while the Zionists use “The Holocaust” to squelch even such half-hearted criticisms as Carter’s, the imperialists trot-out “the good war” and “the greatest generation” to smother their critics in an avalanche of feel-good symbols and bald-faced propaganda.
Oligarchic plutocrats in both countries have their subject/citizens firmly by ‘the short hairs,’ and there will be no painless way for either populace to get loose from what they’ve yet to realize (though their tormentors know very well) is a death-grip. In fact, the bottom-line position in both camps is:  ‘If we don’t get everything we want (which, finally, is everything there is), nobody’s going to get anything.’
Hidden behind the fraying curtain of their utter ruthlessness, however, is the “classified” fact of their own terror-stricken condition.  The ‘all-or-nothing’ “surge” now about to be implemented in Iraq is a version ‘in-miniature’ of the oligarchs’ general plan for last-ditch desperate-measures as their grandiose scheme to privatize the whole Earth comes to the bad end it was destined to reach from the moment they initiated it.  And as the project collapses everywhere else, its ‘perpetraitors’ will increasingly turn their rage and disappointment back upon their own captive peoples, as they are doing more and more blatantly even now. 
Israelis and Americans, having been artificially joined-at-the-hip by entrenched interests wishing to cripple both peoples, look to be sharing pretty much the same fate, as their owners’ pipe-dreams go up-in-smoke and/or down-in-flames.  Meantime, back in ‘the real world’ you can see others doing what they can to insulate themselves from what is certain to be considerable “collateral” damage and toxic fallout of various kinds when at last “the feces impacts the ventilation system.”

The Beginning of the Conflict between the Jews and the Arabs.....and Why!
Abraham became the “Father” of the Jewish Nation by the will of God. He was old and his wife Sarai was barren at the time. In error, Abraham decided to help out God and start a family with Sarai’s hand maid Hagar, an egyptian. She conceived a son. There was now tension in the house of Abraham and Hagar fled away. But, an Angel found her and told her to return to Sarai and submit “under her hands”. The Angel told Hagar something else. That something else is the root of the problem in the Middle East today. The Angel told Hagar that her son would be called Ishmael, .....that he would be a “wild man; his hand will be against every man , and every man’s hand against him”...Ishmael was not the choice of God to continue the Jewish race. Instead he became the “father of the Arab nations.
Finally, Abraham and Sarai had a son, he was named Isaac. It was Isaac that was God’s choice to continue the Jewish nation.  The prophecy of the Angel given to Hagar has proved correct. There exists an everlasting hatred between the two “families” and it will never end. This family feud will bring about the close of time.
We can come up with all kinds of reasons why there is war in the middle east, but this is the real reason. It is within Ishmeal’s nature to never want to live in peace, not only with Israel, but with his brethern.....and us as well.

Beware critics of Israel! Miss Rose Comfort,comment # 42882, a terrorist in no-disguise, is warning you with the Bomb if you don’t shut up! No further comment is needed, for she is the typical f...-bloody Zionist terrorist, and the worst of them either live in the United States or came from America as terrorist occupiers of Palestine.

How is the current infighting between Hamas and Fatha, Israeli responsability?  Blame the Jews, blame the Jews.  This is not journalism, this is taking sides. There’s no doubts Israel is committing war crimes, and there’s no doubts Hamas, Hezbollah, and Fatah are committing war crimes too. That’s the sad truth here, no one at this point has any moral superiority. Name calling Israel, without mention of the same sins in Arab states or terrorists groups is just, in the end, antisemitic.  For instance, one blogger claims that Israelis are racists (?), maybe so I have no ideas. On the other end most Arab states are openly antisemitic, some are very racist vs. their african or asian populations, some do not allow Jews to live in their mist. When’s the last time you read an article about Arab racism and virulent antisemitism?

I didn’t read the piece, but I wish to comment nonetheless:

See the internal disputes among Palestinians today, Fatah v. Hamas. Blame that on the US and Israel too if you wish.

Israel has not been an angel since 1948, but the truth is it faces enemies who wish the Jewish state destroyed. War is shitty, but Israel has a right to defend herself against those who wish to see her destruction.

And also consider that over 500,000 jews were expelled from arab lands this century. Do they have a right of return? Consider that the greatest massacre of Palestinians was done by Jordan, not Israel.

Consider yourselves victims of left-wing propaganda.

Ok, maybe I’ll go back and read the article, but all my comment will not be affected, as none of the issues I point out are likely to be addressed by what is likely a one-sided article.

The left has lost because it has no morals. It is a relativistic movement that cries for Saddam, arguing his trial was a sham and unfair, while the American prison industrial complex is ignored by these groups. Don’t cry for Saddam and Hamas and the Ayatollahs.

Blah blah blah

The “Palestinians” are instilled with Jew hatred from the time they are born, like so many in the Arab world.  Where are the billions of dollars sent to them to help build the infrastructure and economy?  What do the kids learn in school besides brutality? Where are the other Arab countries coming to their aide?  Why can’t they face the corruption in their own ranks instead of blaming a handful of Jews in comparison to their numbers, who successfully made the desert bloom? Trying to revise history by bulldozing archeological antiquities or brainwashing children (or.."progressives") doesn’t change the truth that the Jews have been in the land of Israel for...forever.  Isn’t the whole thing about envy turned to jealousy turned to hatred turned to rage?

You know, the Jews have had just about enough of this crap...after over 6,000 years they’re not going quietly this time. There is nowhere left to go. There is nothing left to lose. You and others like you had better back off or they will feel they have no alternative other than to Drop the Bomb and take you all along on the ride to oblivion.  Happy Chanuka.

I appreciate this forthright journalism about the horrific situation of the Palestinians. A few years ago, before the invasion of Iraq, an Israeli acquaintace (at that time a friend) told me how it would come to pass that the Palestinians would be forced out of their territory, and so, step by step, has it happened. How can it be that we are willing to countenance such tragedy inflicted under the aegis of the U.S .and with our backing? What is this awful paralysis of the will and the heart that has set in, and where will it take us? But it would be even worse but for some voices such as yours and Carters that are being raised to good purpose. Let us keep sounding the alarms while we can, if for no other reason than that the awful truth needs telling.

This is a win/win situation!! The palestinians keep saying how they love death more than we love life....they teach their 5yr olds that becoming a shahid will guarantee sex with 72 doe-eyed virgins!! If it is such an honor for their children to die in explosions, let’s help them out!!

Why is everybody afraid of calling the zioinist israelis by their proper name:  NAZIS?  Just because in the west you are terrified of calling Jews Nazis, the Palestinians must suffer forever under their NAZI yoke?  Hell, NO!  These are NAZIS and should be brought to war crimes tribunals!

If you use the pics from Jenin the story will gain substance, it doesn’t matter that the occurrences are a few years apart.  The important thing is to pass the message on, to take the message to the corners of the world.  I find it disturbing that the IDF will not fire on good targets if they have identified civilians with the target, specially since the US Army is willing to deal with the collateral damage later.  I find it disturbing the howling made by the UN when the crossings are shut off and the Philistines can not make it to work in Israel, since in that part of the world only Israel provides good jobs, medical and citizenship, that gives you the right to vote and elect your own ministers, of your own people/Duahhh.  Yeah I find it disturbing that in Europe they love to discuss politics with Americans, since Americans seems to have such a shallow understanding of the situations surrounding many critical issues.  But what I found to be very disturbing is that many Europeans and others view Americans as gullible and naive.  I wonder why?  Oh yea if you all ever wonder why a explosive belt is put together the way it is, is due to the Claymore effect.  To answer your question, check command detonated mines, do Google search.

Ethnic cleansing and genocide of natural inhabitents off, of thier land is OUR National Trait.
So why are we surprised that the United States blanket veto of all UN sanctions against Israel,thereby supporting a slow anhilation of the Palistinians, has only paved the way to a policy that we ourselves followed, in establshing our own nation?

Why would you call the politics of Hamas repugnant?  Do you know anything about their politics, except that the media reports they do not recognize the state of Israel’s right to exist.  Then you go on to describe a state so gruesome that the South African aparteid regime looks like a benign government next to it.  Did that government have the “right” to continued existance?  I thought most people said no, that’s why it doesn’t exist any more.

TruthDig… if I rely on this site for “truth”.. just shoot me now.....

See Virginia Tilley’s words. This is the historic consequences of the Nakba. History will sort it out and the Palestinians will remember their Nakba as the Jews remember their Holocaust. South Africans remember their Apartheid, American blacks remember slavery, American Natives remember their Trails of Tears. Democracy is far away and failing.

http://www.counterpunch.com/tilley12152006.html

Hillary clinton loves the israli lobby N.Y. is big jewish block and she has to suport this war are not get elected she is not for peace nor will she ever solve any crisis involveing isreal

Democrats, though, still get most of the pro-Israel dollars. Among AIPAC’s staunchest backers in Congress are such well-known liberals as Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, Jerrold Nadler, and Howard Berman. Steny Hoyer, the House minority whip, is so reliable that “he might as well be on the AIPAC payroll,” a congressional staffer told me.

Hillary Clinton is equally dependable. Still attempting to live down her 1998 declaration of support for a Palestinian state and the kiss she gave Suha Arafat in 1999, Clinton has sought to compensate by voting AIPAC’s way on almost every issue. In the current election cycle, she has received $80,000 in pro-Israel money—more than any other congressional candidate.

Partly as a result of such giving, says one Hill staffer, “We can count on well over half the House—250 to 300 members—to do reflexively whatever AIPAC wants.”

these are not my words im quoteing

The Storm over the Israel Lobby
By Michael Massing
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19062

Since Israel was declared a sovereign nation, their right to exist has been challenged by Arabs living within their borders, and in neighboring states. Consider this - not one single Israeli strapped explosives to their body, and indiscriminately killed Arab women and children. Over the past 50 years many good faith efforts made by Israel have been rejected or thwarted by the “Palestinians.” (The fable of the Scorpion and the Frog comes to mind).  It’s time for Israel to annex all the disputed territory, to include land gained by military conquest, and declare new borders. Arabs within the new borders who are not law abiding, would be arrested and then deported.  Enough already.

“There are other, far more loaded words for what is happening to the Palestinians.  One shudders to repeat them”

The words are “genocide” and “nazi zionists.” Go ahead, say them.

Thank you Chris Hedges for telling the truth.

Unfortunately, as long as our government and media are controlled by the Jewish lobbies (AIPAC, JINSA, etc.) and Zionist-controlled think tanks and owners (Heritage Foundation, PNAC, etc.), it will remain ‘verboten’ to utter any criticism of Israel in the press or in congress. The only hope is that Israel wiil become so bold and arrogant that it will facilitate it’s own demise.

I have always liked the Jewish people and their religion, but after studying the history, it becomes clear that there is a reason that they have been periodically chosen for persecution in the past: they inevitably seek to control the economies of the regions they live, to the detriment of all others. They are a brilliant, resourceful, and hard-working people who have chosen to use these qualities to advance their own interests rather than contribute to the world’s. This seems never to have changed throughout their history.

I am afraid that eventually, the Zionists and the wealthy Jews of America will (once again) cause the suffering of many good Jewish people because of their need to control others. We can only hope that it wont be another ‘holocaust’ which will be shoved in our faces whenever criticism is leveled.

War is ugly and Israel is at war.

Bloodshed is horrific and no one can deny that.

Perspective is the only thing that distinguishes one interpretation of a situation from another.

Go back to the begining of the creation of the state of Israel and the Faisal Weitzman agreement, and study the history of Imam of Jersusalem and his close relationship with the Nazis including his meeting with Hitler and Hitlers top men.

Most do not know of this but it is there on histories pages.  We decide what level of understanding is appropriate for us to judge the situation.  In consideration, I ask, is ignorance ever suitable to enable our judgement?

If enough pizza parlors are blown up, I figure a country can become jumpy.  If I continually point a gun at you and play Russian Roulette you will become jumpy and perhaps make a grievous error not knowing whether I had bullets in the gun I pointed at you, or not.

I may react and blow you away only to find out Your gun was a Toy gun.  At the risk of being wrong, perhaps I could not take any chances.

Who is to blame, me for shooting out of reaction, or you for promting that reaction by pointing the gun at me to begin with?

Why have the Palestinians in Arab lands remained unassimilated and ostracized in those Arab lands, while in Israel the Muslims and Arabs have led comfortable lives?

Learn that Israel has just as much right to exist as do their neighbors and all came into being as they are within the same time frame as when the modern day Israel was created!

Israel has been attacked even before it came into what is now known as modern day Israel.  Knw your history and this statement does in fact make sense even though it does not appeat to.

While modern Arab nations like Iraq and Syria came to be, so the borders of Israel were also on the table.  Despite the tiny piece of land it now occupies, many plotted to prevent it from ever realizing it own creation despite it’s ancient right of claim.

Ethnic cleansing from Israel whisle it’s Arab Muslim population enjoys a higher standard of living that in 99% of the Arab Middle East?

The Christian population is shrinking in every Middle Eastern country and you should know why!

Israel is the only Mid East nation in which the Christian population increasing!

Do you believe that Saudi Arabia practices aparthied?  A nation without a church and Israel you find fault with?

Look at how Islamic nations have treated their resident Christians and Hebrews, (if there are any left) and then compare!  Look at standard of living and political power and then compare!

Maybe then you can view the tragedy of what is happening in it’s proper light! 

Things are not always what they appear!
Read and research or you do justice an injustice!

Over a year ago Jews and the IDF pulled-out from Gaza. It was an invitation by Ariel Sharon to the PA to engage in nation-building in lieu of terrorism. To afford the Palestinians a good-start, Liberal American Jews paid for the green houses being left-behind. This infrastructure, developed over the years had both fed the Isrealis and provided income through selling surplus fruits & veggies. So, what do the Palestinians do, they loot pillage, and destroy the gift that could feed them, provide jobs, and a source of export-income.

Upon the Jews departure from Gaza, the very next day, the Palestinians begin launching rockets into Israel. These rockets have been a regular occourance for over a year now. Yes, even weeks into the so-called cease-fire, there have been 30+ rockets launched, including today.

As to the premis of the “poor suffering Palestinians...”, they get what they deserve! They seek Israels destruction as proclaimed by HAMAS and their election. Per the Left, when Israel strikes back its a “ tragedy “ and “ genocide”. There is hand-wringing and bemoaning the fate of the put-upon Palestinians.

Get over it! The Palestinians, whether they be HAMAS, PLO, PA, Force 17, PLFP, DPLP, Islamic Jihad, or the Martyr’s Brigade live to kill Jews and eliminate the “ Zionist entity”. The real calmity is that the world lets this excercise of mass-martydom continue unabatted.

When the Palestinians want peace more than they want to kill Jews, the killing will end. When the Palestinians want a future for their children more than praising the virtues of martyrdom, they will have a future worth living. What the so-called Progressive community REALLY seeks justice, they will stop buying into the big-lie as to Isreal commiting genocide and compel the Palestinians to finally give-up on their dream of eliminating Israel and focus on their real responabilty of nation-building while providing their people the future they deserve within a prosporous two-state solution.

The Palestinians never had leadership that prepared them for their future. They were only led to kill Jews and destroy Israel. More so, the surrounding Arab states have used the Paestinians as cannon-fodder in their own quest to deflect attention to their failed-states and despotic-rule. When the Arabs accept Isreal, they will cease leading the martry-fixated Palestinians to their ruin!

What a crock this is, Hedges. Israel removed every Jew from Gaza long ago. So what do the local Arabs do? Elect Hamas (with all that their genocidal raison d’etre implies) and proceed with the bombardment of Israeli civilian towns and villages, and trash the high-tech greenhouses left behind. I have no more sympathy for these Arabs. They are responsible for their current situation, and the Israelis have a moral obligation to defend themselves.

Though the situation in Gaza is regrettable, at best and bordering on a humanitarian crisis, Israel is not the ‘bad’ guy.  Hamas has chosen it’s own path, Palestinians (used very loosely)be damned. One condition has been placed on Hamas, recognize the right of Israel to exist, that’s all, no more.  The basis of a solution has been set. Hamas choses to ignore it at their own peril. And I am one to smile at their self-destruction in Palestine (used very loosely)and the rest of the Arab world.

Everything Israel has done, rightly or wrongly, has been in RESPONSE to attacks. Perhaps you are looking past the real problem.

Senator Fulbright from Arkansas identified the problem many years ago when he declared that Washington, D.C. was Israeli occupied.

More Americans need to become informed about this hold Israel has on our government and how much money they receive each and every day from the U.S.

More Americans need to understand that we are so hated in the Middle East, not because of our country’s strong ties to Christianity, as some would have us believe, but because of our strong ties to Israel and how we uphold their bad behavior.

Israel only does what the United States allows it to do. As a nation we hate to admit it, but the powerful jewish lobby in America,the amount of money given to both Republican and Democrat parties and canidates running,along with the dual citizenship that allows hundreds of thousands of citizens of Israel,living in Israel, to vote and donate in American elections fuels our unfair and unreasonable bias towards Israel. Polititions in this country fear of being labeled anti-semetic or losing campaign contributions or even worse a few votes, lose there moral authority in order to allow a system of apartied,ethnic cleasning,assasinations,unlawful detentions and out right racism the same way we did for years in South Africa. The only difference between Israel and South Africa is the Jewish strong hold over American politicans that allows this policy to continue. Take for example Joe Liberman, He supports the war in Iraq because he believes it helps Israel. Until the U.S becomes a even broker for peace in the middle east,we will never win the war on terror.

So, build the fence that’s needed building for years, or build the rest of it, and send the UN to patrol it, both sides of it. People that can’t see each other have a harder time being violent to one another, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ etc…

It’s high time for this article, for Jimmy Carter’s book and for Americans, especially Jews in America (myself included) to acknowledge this travesty that we benignly call the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

It is encumbent upon American Jews to finally take their heads out of the sand and start to lead this debate where it MUST go - to a discussion of REAL peace for all the people of Israel and Palestine.  American Jews MUST step up and put pressure on the Israeli and American Governments to stop this tragedy.  Israel must be made to know that this only leads to a backlash upon them in the future in which the State of Israel will be destroyed - if by nothing else than superior numbers. 

Equally though, the Arab states, principally Iran and Saudi Arabia, must be forced to stop their involvement.  History, both recent and old, condemn the Arab leaders for their actions of keeping generations of their own people illiterate and dependent upon them. 

For it’s part, Israel would do well to welcome the Palestinians and the Arabs who are its citizens, as equals - in this, South Africa is a viable model. 

First though, Israel must acknowledge the evil that it does upon Palestinians and by action prove they mean to correct the past and lead all in the region to peace and mutual prosperity.

Maybe if they wouldn’t have been firing missles into Israel and maybe if they would have taken the Clinton peace deal 7-8 years ago, we wouldn’t have this discussion.

Fatah and Hamas are at least as evil and corrupt as the Israelis, and probably more so by a factor of 10.

I’m amazed that we are finally seeing this openly talked about, even if only in the “liberal” blogosphere. It used to be that not even in such a venue as this could anyone bluntly bear witness to the despicable actions of Israel, certainly not in a feature article. Perhaps things are really changing. Perhaps Israel’s stranglehold on our foreign policy will finally be broken, maybe even in our lifetimes. I mean, are the Israelmaniacs going to claim now that Jimmy Carter, Tom Hayden, and Chris Hedges are all anti-semites yearning for a new holocaust?

Israel is doing nothing but defending itself against these Muslim barbarian so called’Palastinians’.Any time Israel gives up ‘land for peace’,these Muslims use that land to further attack Israel.The Israelis have no choice but to try to defend themselves by building walls to keep these people who are so evil that they strap bombs to themselves and their children out!The Jews have a tiny postage stamp sized country that they have turned into a nice place to live.They are surrounded by vast ‘Muslim countries’ that havent done a damn thing to help the Palastinians-these countries continue to use the Palastinians as pawns to undermine Israel and turn public opinion against it.Here is an idea.Why not get the BILLIONS OF DOLLARS out of Yasser Arafat’s widow’s Swiss bank accounts and give it to it’s rightful owners..THE PALASTINIAN PEOPLE WHO IT WAS STOLEN FROM! For the record,I am a Christian-not a Jew.

Neanderthal logic

From their perspective, conservatives are quite correct in debunking the theory of evolution. Evolution isn’t a universal circumstance, some evolve, some don’t and clearly, they didn’t.

It is so important and refreshing that someone say it like it is in the Middle East saga between isreal and Palestine.  Isreal has committed more atrosities against the Palestine people than any of their bombers could ever hope to achieve.  It is so sad that a people who know first hand how tragic brutality can be against a single group.  It is most distrubing that Isreal uses its past to trample upon another group of people and claim they have the right to defend themselves.  with America as its ally, Isreal has nuclear weapons aimed at all of the Middle East, while at the same time, being insulted by Iran and other Muslim nations wanting to have weapons to defend itself. Americans will never wake up in time to the slaughter and its resulting madness caused by years of oppression and ignorance.  Isreal has learned nothing from the Germans and equally, they have learned everything.  The final solution is alive and well in Palestine.  This time, Isreal is leading the charge with American money, weapons, and sanctions.  O Shame, O Shame!

This sounds more like the Nazis treatment of the Jews in the ghettos of Poland.

Jews got bullied, so when they get the opportunity, they bully someone else.

When they say “Never again!” they only mean “Never again, TO US!”

As an American Jew who has been distressed at many of the actions of Israelis, I believe Hedges’ criticism is offered without any context.  Israeli had no claims not interest in the West Bank or Gaza until AFTER Israel was attacked in 1967.  I agree that the Israeli settlements were a terrible idea, as was the attack by Israel of Lebanon in 1982, but I also know -as I am sure Hedges knows - that those supporting the Palestinians do not win friends and influence people by blowing up buses and killing many hundreds of inoocent Israelis. And evne Carter acknowledges that the Arab citizens of Israel are not badly treated.  So. a little context please.

What a “butt-head” some people will never get it. They are so blind sighted with dislike of Israel they can’t see thev truth for the fiction’

Please the Palestinians bring this garbage unto themselves. Why is Israel the blame? What about the responsibilities of the Pal. leadership they are so busy killing each other in the name of some honour. Please I grew up over there. They like death more than life and their leaders don’t give a hoot about them. They collect their monies and go live the highlife away from the strip or the bank.

Sorry Israel is trying to protect itself from idiots.

Come on guys. You are all anti-semetic. Just be honest.

Perhaps it should be a requirement to educate yourselves on the Middle East before making comments.  Israel has made every effort for peace, but continues to be attacked for no reason.  Heaven forbid Israel defends itself, right?  Maybe you should research the Six Day War, or maybe you should ask one of the 1 million Palestinians living in Israel in peace with Israel’s protection and fortune if what is going on is genocide or self defense.  I feel sorry for you if you are blind to reality.

Regarding that picture and cutline. This story was reported on my local news channel (several days after I saw it on the web) And then immediately neutralized by some comments about Israel’s justification.

Nothing new there. What impacted me was the picture. They had taken out the red (blood) and replaced it with a watery gray, making it look like a mixture of water and oil. And never mentioned the words, “blood,” “in their sleep,” or “eight children.”

Thanks to YOU. All the YOU’S out there, the truth about the Israeli - Palestinian “conflict” will become common knowledge. And it is not a “conflict,” it is murder. Random, indifferent murder. No goal, no grand cause, not even a deeply religious issue, just plain murder. They do it because they can. We support it because for some strange reason our government and main stream media are afraid not to.

See ... http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1217-21.htm ... Ex-Soldiers Break `Silence’ on Israeli Excesses

So, like everything else that’s coming to a boiling point, we need to let those new guys in Congress know, we don’t like this either. Wont be easy. I’m sure they have already got their marching orders from the folks up there who mindlessly support everything Israel does. (Maybe they are as dumb and uninformed as the folks who think God will wrap them up in rapture and ship them to heaven when they march into Israel, when more likely the Israelis will wrap them up in bandages and ship them to the local hospital ... or worse. But that’s another issue.)

Thousands still don’t have a clue, so make that your mission for a while. Gather pictures and videos and statistics and start emailing them to every one you know, just a little bit at a time. If your friends and family, like mine are people who care, they will look and listen ... ask questions, want to learn more ... and even thank you with, “I had no idea!”

Should you fear being attacked as anti-Semitic, remind them. It is the Israeli government that sets and drives this policy. And since Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular are Semites, it is the Israeli government itself, and it’s supporters who stand as anti-Semite.

What a bunch of crap !  Media has you people blinded.  LOOK INTO REAL FACTS....LIKE HISTORY.

No one even mentions the daily bombs being lobbed into Israel from Gaza.  No one mentions the build up apparent under everyones’ noses of Hezbollahs weapons in Lebanon to be used against Israel.

Israel is constantly being pushed to give up their land, which was WON fair and square during war that was launched against them over and over. Yet, Palestinians NEVER hold up their end of any agreement. 

Israel should have stomped them out long ago, so they could finally live in peace.

Arabs have been pushing Jewish genocide since BEFORE WWII, and they will never stop. 

You people all need lessons in middle eastern history, and to quit paying so much attention to mainstream media.

What a refreshing way to start my day...reading a blog written by a dimwit that thinks the history of the Middle East starts in 1967 and refuses to acknowledge that the British and then the Arabs have a greater hand in everything that’s led to the way things are now.  How many times have the Arabs been offered a state?  What have they offered Israel in return?  Only violence and NEVER a counteroffer (unless of course it’s violence).  Meanwhile of course, not one wants to talk about how their Arab brothers stick them in refugee camps and wont let them have jobs or integrate into society. 

I am not condoning 100% what Israel does in order to protect its citizens.  It sucks, and innocents pay the price by having to live near Muslim terrorists.  But anyone who thinks Muslims strapping bombs to their bodies and blowing up weddings and commuter buses because they despair and are poor need to get themselves an education.  Their indoctrination in school and at home in the jihad mindset (which ALSO has been around since before 1967 amazingly enough) is child abuse and hatred at the highest level.  Show me anything remotely similar in terms of what parents teach their kids in Israel and I’l