Good, thorough job. I enjoy your columns.

Thank you both.

It is nice to see the Imus must go crowd plough right back into support of policies that will result in dead Jews.

Israel is a great scapegoat for the Arabs. That does not prove that there is a great sympathy for the Palestinian, who have trouble working in the Gulf since Arafat supported Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Jewish success in Israel is a slap in the face of every Arab, every Muslim and Israel, a tiny country, makes a good excuse for dictators and their failures in their own countries.

My cousin, who has been mentioned before, has spoken to myriad of Islamists in Arabic, they do not want Jews in the Middle East. Rosenberg can recreate history all he wants but that is a reality. Dayan might have sympathized with the loss of Arab villages to Jews. However, had the Palestinians not attacked Israel in 1947 how many of those villages would have been lost? If Jordan, which was begged to stay out of the war in 1967, had not tried to exterminate Israel and lost the West Bank how many villages would not be lost.

Actually how many Palestian Villages were lost to Jordan in 1948 and to Egypt? If it is a hole it the heart it is one they put there themselves. If there is a hole the continuing support for eliminating Israel and Jews from the Middle East has put it there. If there is a hole in the heart the American far left and right, there is so little difference, with their sanctimony and Imus like bigotry has put it there. Allowing fanatasies helps no one but yourselves.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

This seems just a tad bit millitant Daniel.

Certainly you can't make peace with a rabid dog. But if we want pacific attitudes and postures from others, shouldn't we try adopting them for ourselves as well?

If you constantly accuse Arabs of false motives and treachery, what right do you have to voice 'outrage' when Arabs accuse Jews of the same thing?

I realize this is a tough nut to crack, but a little good will - from both sides - could do wonders - maybe even prove the age of miracles hasn't passed.

Which part of Daniel's piece in particular offends you? I'm not seeing it (although I'm very busy, so I may be missing it).

Aren't Arabs also "semitic"?

If that is the case, accusing Arabs of being losers, unsuccessful in economics and liars with false motives who say they want peaceful settlements but only want to stab you in the back - I'd call that anti Semitic.

For the love of Hashem/Allah, please stop with this semantic nitpick. Yes, Arabs are Semites. But the term anti-Semitism has been used for more than 100 years to refer specifically to prejudice and hatred against Jews.

To Andrew:

Greenbaum: "It is nice to see the Imus must go crowd plough right back into support of policies that will result in dead Jews."

I don't think TPM folks support "policies that will result in dead Jews...."

Plus, he continues to personally insult MJ who is one of our most responsive regular posters. Am I wrong? Did you not warn him to cut it out. We cannot discuss this issue at all if people are going to be denounced as would-be Jew-killers.

Doesn't every side of any debate about war think their opponent's position will result in more death? Those, after all, are the stakes of the debate.

If Daniel had assigned that as the intent of M.J.'s argument, I would have a problem. But I think it's completely up to debate which policy will actually lead toward peace, less war, and less death.

David Brooks is so likeable. He's one of the only decent 'conservatives' I could name.

I think this is Brooks's shtick -- he subtly appears "civil" while offending liberals and Democrats time and time again. He has a real disingenuousness about him, but I'll admit, it's real sneaky.

Take his column from yesterday, praising John McCain. He wrote:

The problem with [McCain's] approach [to Iraq] is he doesn't grapple with the psychology and culture of the Iraqis, upon which all else depends. His focus is largely military. But no one can doubt the substance and seriousness of his views.

OK, so on the first two sentences, replace McCain with Bush -- is there any difference? McCain's "problem" is that, like Bush and the neocons, he's completely ignoring the dynamics and details of the Iraqis, and just assuming we can easily steamroll through, and be hailed with flowers and chocolates.

And then, the good stuff -- "no one can doubt the substance and seriousness" of McCain. Well, *of course* we can doubt it -- we've just been told by Brooks that McCain's approach is completely ignoring the most important part of any approach in Iraq: "upon which all else depends."

At the same time, the fact that "no one can doubt" McCain is also a slight to the Democrats, people like Russ Feingold, who, for over two years now, had a "plan," and that was withdrawing from Iraq.

Of course, what the Democrats have isn't "serious," even though it makes the most sense. We need to stop giving the Bush Administration a blank check. We need a timetable. We need to withdraw responsibly, and protect our troops in the process. We need to stop adding fuel to the fire there, and, more importantly, once we're gone, the Iraqis can spend less time on their occupiers, and more time on things like getting al Qaeda out of their country.

Of course, that's not a plan. That's not serious.

The only "serious" people on Iraq for Brooks are people like McCain and Lieberman and Bush, people who for the last six years have shown time and time again they are completely wrong about Iraq and foreign policy.

And this, too, is subtle. In McCain's speech, he referred to Congressional Democrats "smiling and celebrating" as they pass the out-of-Iraq bill. Brooks, in that column, said McCain was "offended by Democrats who laughed and celebrated during the passage of withdrawal legislation."

Subtle difference, but Brooks's version makes Democrats seem much more crass. (And what's wrong with celebrating you got a bill through Congress, especially one that puts limits on this train wreck of a President?)

So I really don't see Brooks as "civil" at all. It takes a close reading to see what Brooks is really saying, and, when you do, it's pretty offensive and disrespectful.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

I DB is likeable too. I mean, he shares almost the identical worldview of, say, Alan Dershowitz or Martin Peretz but he is no fanatic. The fact that he's 30 years younger helps. He does not exude paranoia.

I'd love to see MJ respond to this serious critique.

Let me first repeat: "The Palestinians material suffering can and should be ended through a combination of settlement in a Palestinian state in the West Bank and absoption by neighboring countries (funded by Israel, the West and Arabs)."

The Palestinians _are_ suffering, and have been suffering, and ignoring that is criminal. However, I'm not sure how important the genuine sympathy (to whatever extent it exists) of (non-Palestinian) Arabs and Muslims to the Palestinian plight really matters.

Parts of the American right genuinely feel threatened by immigration. Maybe I feel for them, but I don't want the government to allow their feelings to dictate policy. Even if I _agreed_ with them, I wouldn't want their feeling to determine federal policy.

So even if the I/P issue is central to Arab anger, which it may be, that doesn't -necessarily- mean it's an issue we must address in a way they'd prefer, any more than the right-wing hatred of taxes means we must lower them.

Also, the fact that the I/P issue is central doesn't mean we're all defining it the same way. Is the problem the suffering of Palestinians? The existence of Israel? A historic defeat? A contemporary (more-or-less) secular and Western-ish state in the ME?

Saying that feelings about the I/P conflict are central doesn't say much.

If there was a functional independent Palestinian state tomorrow, alongside Israel, does anyone think Arab and Muslim anger toward Israel would disappear? I doubt it'd even decrease.

So we've gotta do the right thing, and encourage the right thing, in the I/P conflict not because we expect that doing so will win hearts and minds--it won't--but simply because it's right.

I would add that 'intepretation' of people's comments only goes so far.

We all expect to be taken at our word, so it is, I think, disrespectful and dirty pool to take something like "Palestine State" and then put "=dead Jews" in front of it, then say "Hey, that's what you want! You want dead Jews!"

It's particularly gauling in a debate because it allows your opponent to ignore everything you've just said and say "You just hate America" or whatever. My opponent becomes a mind reader and 'knows' my motives better than I do myself. Nothing is more contemptuous about the right wing than their mind reading abilities.

I don't argue that the fact of the I-P conflict's centrality means it has to be settled to the exclusive satisfaction of one side.
I support the two-state solution with its modalities worked out in negotiations.
I stress the need to recognize its centrality because the neocons have worked long and hard to convince the USG that the I-P is not central and that therefore there is no need to follow the Carter/Clinton model and engage in resolving it.
Those who argue that the I-P conflict is not central are almost always satisfied with the status quo i.e. they have little or no problem with the occupation.
But, in general, I agree with your points.
Last point. I think the two-state solution will pretty much the fixation on Israel.
Remember, it was under Oslo and Arafat that Israel achieved three of its most secure years of its history. Why? Because the PLO and the IDF worked together against terrorists (PM Netanyahu personally thanked Arafat for battling the terrorists). If a peace agreement was signed, with security guarantees for both sides, it would stick.
Between 1997 and 2000, it was hard getting into the West Bank because so many thousands of Israelis were driving there to shop. Shabbat in Ramallah and Jericho was what people did.
Israelis and Palestinians are both desperate to see the return of those days.
If Rabin had not been murdered, we'd have peace already.

Of course Muslims in general are sympathetic with the Palestinians, but that is not the entire reason for Islamic resentment of Israel. Most Muslims consider all of the pre-1948 Palestine to be Arab land; that is, part of the land that has been in Arab hands for over a thousand years. The various rulings establishing a Jewish Homeland, from 1920 to 1948 were not and are not accepted in the Islamic world. Hence three major wars in addition to intifadas and all the rest.
One can only say that recognition of Israel by Jordan and Egypt is sullen at best, not representing any depth of popular feeling of even more than the most superficial accommodation by the leaderships. Arab historical memory is a long, long one.

I'll type this slowly.

Arabs are Semitic. Nobody said they weren't. And yet--follow me closely--'anti-Semitism' means 'hatred of Jews.'

Words sometimes have meanings that aren't completely literal. This may shock you, but while 'male' is a sex, the word 'sexism' currently means prejudice against women.

Is that because women deny that men are gendered? First they claim ownership of the world 'sexism', and now they have the Vagina Monologues! Coincidence ... or a Plan for World Domination???

The facts of historic identity, genetic markers, and membership in the 'Semitic peoples,' whatever else they are, are utterly irrelevant for the discussion of what 'anti-Semitism' means in English as used today. Simply doesn't matter. Antisemitism means prejudice against Jews.

And, to the contrary, the 'ownership' of the term 'anti-Semitism'--which is hardly a glorious victory--was I'm almost certain in response to Jew-hating writings in Germany in the 18th or 19th century. The Germans, or Prussians, or whatever, wrote about the inferior 'semitic races,' by which they meant Jews, not Arabs. (And, finally, how many points do you think anyone gets for being a 'semite'? This is such a wonderful thing that Jews wanna deprive Arabs of it? For all the '30% Off For Semites' sales, and 'Kiss a Semite!' bumperstickers?) So blame the Germans.

This is an attempt to de-particularlize racism against Jews. Everyone evil's a Nazi, all massacres are the Holocaust, and antisemitism means hatred of Assyrians, too.

Sheesh. Only the Arabs and Jews could fight over what to call people who hate them. There's plenty of bad feeling to go around, but this one is just beating a dead semite. The word means what it means. Pretending it means something else is, at best, odd.

"no iron in this fire, so it's easy to say pox on both houses or whatever."

No iron in the fire? If you are also speaking as an American, not only do you have an iron in the fire, but there is already a pox on your own house.

Nudnik,

It was also as a result of Oslo that Israel had thrust onto it one of the longest and most damaging wars in its history....

No, it was the failure of the process following up the Oslo Accords.  We can argue about the reasons for that failure, but it seems impractical at best to deny the necessity of the Accords and the process that came from it.

On April 13, 2007 - 2:44pm KingElvis said:

Nothing is more contemptuous about the right wing than their mind reading abilities.

Truly, its one of their tactics when they run out of things to say. I once told a right wingnut he should go in business using his mind reading talents. Buy a storefront building, have the word "READINGS" printed on the big window and you're all set.

But Wigmari, I wish I could count the number of times when I try to weigh in on this issue, and am then reminded that "You don't know how it feels" to be part of a hated group or to be part of 'race' that went through the Holocaust.

I guess I should amend it to say "I PERSONALLY don't have an iron in the fire."

But it seems like from the Zionist perspective, I as an 'American' have the right and duty to take an interest in this Israel business - as long as I'm not critical of Israel. If I start asking too many questions, then I'm told to butt out and mind my own gentile business.

Zionista, I would completely disagree with you. It was not "the failure of the process following up the Oslo Accords", it was the process itself. Throughout the process, Arafat reneged on the key premise of the process: getting his people ready for a peace. Through his violations of every single aspect of the Accords, from day one, through his incendiary rhetoric, through the absolute refusal to even teach children about the possibility of peace as opposed to teaching jihad, the process was a failure. It could not have ended any other way than it did. What followed was merely the result of 8 years of ignoring Palestinian intransigence and revanchism.

King Elvis,

But it seems like from the Zionist perspective, I as an 'American' have the right and duty to take an interest in this Israel business - as long as I'm not critical of Israel. If I start asking too many questions, then I'm told to butt out and mind my own gentile business.

If you have an opinion, say it.  It's hardly news that some will flame you over it and others will argue with you.  We all have a right to our opinions, but it comes with a responsibility to support it with arguments.

hmmm...

"...The very existence of Israel is shameful to much of the Arab world as a patent reminder of their weakness..."

Is the existence of Israel still really a front and center issue, or is their renewed interest in the I/P issue a reaction to their growing shame and weakness not being prepared for the millions of Iraqi refugees fleeing their homes, due to the West's intervention (history repeating itself)?

The Palestinian issue seen as a 'constant' reminder to the Arabs that the US still has a colonial hold on the region. Could the Arabs finally be waking up to the fact that the Palestinian issue could be them one day?

Those who have a knowledge of the history and the politics, what do you think is going through the minds of those arab states when they listen to the likes of Cheney and Olmert and the plans of PNAC and Clean Break?

Is interest in the Palestinian issue an indication of a growing Arab alliance with a broader agenda?

Brooks is extremely likeable. Until he opens his mouth. Then it becomes all to apparant that a stream of right wing talking points is spewing forth with total disregard for the truth, all to often delivered with a chummy, snickering and condescending little giggle. I remember that he literally laughed at the idea that the curent US Attorney scandal had any subtance to it, or that there possibly could be, you know, crimes involved.

But if you turn off the sound, then he seems like such a nice, moderate fellow.

I'll waste some time again. The Middle east id full of problems. A partial enumeration provides: Palestinians issues, Sunni/Shia splits, dictatorships galore, fundamentalism (e.g. Saudis), and poverty. Of the 20 some states there, every one but one want to talk about Israel; it's easy, traditional (last 1000 years), hides local issues and despite what most think, the easiest to solve.

It's clearly a very localized problem with no implication to any other issue in the enumeration above. Have a ball and Imus on.

Sorry. This was supposed to have appeared under Genghis's comment but I messed up somehow.

This is a great resource on Oslo. It is a list of the terror-inflicted deaths in Israel from the Oslo signing on. Note the immediate spike after Oslo was signed when Hamas set out to destroy the peace process. Note the precipitous drop after the United States in the fall of 1997 began meeting daily with the IDF and PLO in the same room on combatting terror. From the fall of 1997 until after Sharon's stroll on the Temple Mount in the fall of 2000 there were hardly any killings of Israelis inside Israel. The terror was being thwarted by security cooperation. I was in Israel in 1999. The place felt as safe as Woostock, NY. And it was. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Suicide+and+Other+Bombing+Attacks+in+Israel+Since.htm

You gotta take your shots to play with the big boys. You better be making sense. Check. I'm totally all for that. Fair enough.

But is 'rationality' ever going to have a place for Zionists unless harnessed to their preferred cause?

Is it really an argument just to say "It's a Jew thing, and you'll never understand?" How far do we take that? Should only soldiers be allowed to discuss wars?

I know I'm likely wasting my time with this, but everytime I post on an MJ thread re: Israel, I'm always struck by these 'tropes.' (These are observations, not arguments, and not personal attacks)

1. Posters defending Israel usually don't seem able to separate the idea of the state from its citizens, and by extension even American Jews. Hence the "anti-Israel = anti Semitic" line.

2. Posters defending Israel ignore the forest for the trees. It all comes down to a few words in UN resolution blablabla. The giant facts of military occupation - an apartheid state - lets ignore that to bicker about language, which leads us to...

3. Tit for tat. Why does the IDF knock over houses? THEY STARTED IT! You know what? The Hatfields and McCoys had their grievances and mutual reasons for feuding too.

4. Abstract Arabs. Are there Palestinian or Arab posters on this site? I know there are Jewish ones. So when we talk about Israel we're talking about Jews and there's a friendly face connected to the entire nation of Israel. With Arabs it's always "The Arab street" or "Typical Arabs" or "Most Arab leaders" or "Of course Arab leaders are cynical" - not cynical like Bush?

The more I spin my wheels talking about this stuff, the more I take it in the shorts on Karma (Some people rate you 1 just for disagreeing - can you believe that?) and the more I'm convinced rational arguments have absolutely NADA to do with it.

But even to suggest that, hey, maybe, just maybe, Jews are (understandably) emotional about this topic and (sometimes) immune to reason and rational argument about Israel - that's not an observation, not an argument -it's an obvious case of overt racism of the anti-semitic variety.

Amen brother.

We never talk about "typical Jews" or "the Jewish 'street'"

And these "Centrist Arab reformers" are so obsessed with hiding their completely cynical disinterest in the Palestinian issue, it's all they talk about at big policy gatherings.

Damn those clever, lying Arabs - they do and say the exact opposite of what they REALLY feel just to throw us off the trail. Tricky. Veeery tricky.

If Arabs are violence addicts - what is the US?

I had a friend who remembers,as a 6 year old, the day the Zionists came to take his home. His mother and father were killed and both his arms were broken. He was told that that was to remind him to never return to that place. He said that he still retains the ownership documents to the family home.

How will the thousands like him ever find justice?

That's not quite apples to apples. Brooks didn't say that his problem with the Arabs at the conference was that they wouldn't acknowledge Israeli grievances; it was that they would only discuss one issue. If Brooks only wanted to discuss one issue, say Iraq, then your criticism would fair. But he described himself as wanting to discuss a number of issues (and yes, of course, we only hear his side).

But he wasn't really talking about the conference members themselves anyway. He was using the conference as an example to suggest that in general Arab discourse with the West is too exclusively focused on the Palestinian issue. You can argue that he's wrong, but claiming, as Rosenberg does, that "the Arabs" are sincere in their concern for the Palestinians misses the point.

"David Brooks is so likeable."
Either this is sarcasm or there's some other David Brooks wondering around. The guy I see on McNeil Lehr is a smarmy, insincere jackass. Please don't tell me you'd like to have a beer with GBubya Bush as well.

Thank you for this thoughtful and reasoned statement. It needs to be heard.

I find few columnists to be less likeable than David Brooks. My contempt for him increased when I found out he was simply inventing small-town America out of whole cloth, and pretending to be reporting from his personal experiences. I don't have much respect for people who are professional liars.

As least with Bob Novak, everybody has known this about him for the past thirty-five years. With David Brooks, there are still people who buy into his shtick.

Thank you!

And Daniel in particular has taken to recently invading every thread involving MJ, regardless of what the topic is, and calling him anti-Semitic.

I didn't find this particular comment by Daniel's to be of that ilk, though.

(While we're indulging in masturbatory linguistic nonsense, perhaps I should point out that black people aren't really black, but only dark brown? And almost no white people are, technically speaking, actually white? Except for a few albinos here and there.)

(No, that kind of thing really isn't worth saying, is it?)

Violence exporters.

It's kind of like the difference between cigarette smokers and tobacco companies.

The rabid dog is a theoretical construct.

Amazing, here is the approx breakdown by year - what happened in 2000/1? and 2005/6 - the wall?

1994 - 4
1995 - 4
1996 - 4
1997 - 3
1998 - 1
1999 - 0
2000 - 4
2001 - 36
2002 - 45
2003 - 23
2004 - 18
2005 - 10
2006 - 3
2007 - 1

"They (Palestinians) people who suffered a terrible tragedy"

Who said "A lie, repeated often enough, will end up as truth." ?

Palestinians suffered self-inflicted minor inconvenience not a terrible tragedy.

They had to move 5, 10, 50, or 100 miles from their home.
They ended up as MJ explained, among people with whom they had "a greater connection to their fellow Arabs" They live in the same region. They speak the same language.For Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, Saudis and Iraqis, Palestinians are either the people next door.."
"Sunnis and Shiites may not agree about much" but they share their love for Palestinians.

There was extremely low number of Palestinian civilian casualties during war of 1948.

What happened to Chechen, Crimean Tatars in USSR, Hindu and Muslim in
India, Kurds in Iraq and so many other examples were
terrible tragedies, what happened in Palestine was not even if they think so.

If your son didn't get into Harvard but was only accepted into Cornell it's not a terrible tragedy even if you think so.
If you lived all your life in a small village and government came and used imminent domain to build military base or a highway and you had to moved 100 miles from your home it's not a terrible tragedy even if you think so.

If God forbid, your child died young from cancer, it's is a terrible tragedy.

Oh, no, MJ! Don't respond to -me-! Repond to mhpine! I'm just the idiot who glommed onto the original, more-intelligent post.

OK. More likable than Ann Coulter.

I agree.

:-) 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

MH Pine,
I'm sorry I haven't responded to you. I do not think you are a ZOA agent or anything like that.
My apologies.
MJ

"As to policies that lead to dead Jews, how about trying to start a country in the middle of a hostile population?"

All world was hostile to Jews when they started the country.
BTW, they never completly left that country, and most of Palestinians in 1948 were children or grand-children of immigrants from other Arab places outside Palestine.

"f you constantly accuse Arabs of false motives and treachery,"
There are no false motives or treachery,
Arab leader don't hide anything, they tell theit plans and desires in direct language.

Lucky davai!

He gets the coveted 5 rating by Nudnik.

SeeDee

Oh, wait!! I forgot the obligatory little ":-)" at the end...

SeeDee

Think you've come close to the right balance in THIS case, but, from looking back on Daniel's commentaries, it is only a matter of time before the 'line' you drew is brushed against to the point that it is over-stepped.

To be candid, I find Daniel's paranoia a bit of leavening in some discussions...utterly dismaying, but leavening.

SeeDee

I've become involved elsewhere in a little evenly-balanced politics (and other topics) 'discussion group'...and, you hit the proverbial nail on the head, JohnW1141.

Their usual ploy of putting words in your mouth begins with, "So you're saying so-and-so", and then proceeding to say precisely the opposite of the point one has made. Your explanation of this being their methodology when they have run out of things to say is SO TRUE.

"repectfully disagree, they continue to live in a hell-hole. It wasn't like that for them before Israel."

You must be kidding.

Of course not. They would never kill mother.

Please. How many families, including mothers, have been driven off their land, terrorized, starved, shot or bombed. When you have a history of atrocities dating from the very "founding" of Israel and hard-line IDF soldiers (patriotic Israelis), today, rebelling against the violence on civilians they are routinely ordered to commit, you cannot feign innocence and purity of heart. How many mothers were bombed in Lebanon last year? How many children?

It is always hard to assign a level of reliability to personal anecdotes, more so when they arrive second hand.

But davai, somehow you transcend all that with your remark that you doubt the mother was killed. It's almost a comic-book world you seem to live in, where humble, purposeful, handsome but personally modest, and invariably righteous Israelis are free to break the arms of a six-YO, and kill his father, but they are scrupled not to kill his mother.

Is that boasting, or just praise?

"How many families, including mothers, have been driven off their land..."

Around 100K Palestinian families were driven inside Palestine (moved few miles) in 1948
Around 170K Arab Jewish families were driven from Arab countries.

"How many mothers were bombed in Lebanon last year? How many children?"

Several millions.

How many mother and children were killed in Lebanon last year?

Do you know the answer?

BTW, How many Palestinian mother and children
were killed in war of 1948.
Let stop propoganda and inflamotory language.

Ze'ev? Ehud? Is that you? Ariel? Avigdor?

I cannot know if RandyR’s story was completely true or not (nor do you), but I take people at face value until shown otherwise. My questions were not inflammatory. Your response is. How many mothers and babies were bombed in Lebanon? You answer, "Millions." Ha-ha.

You say down thread: Palestinians suffered self-inflicted minor inconvenience not a terrible tragedy.

If that is what you wish to believe, then by all means, cling to your rationalizations. But don’t try to tell someone, face to face, so to speak, that they have not been touched by or heard of real suffering when they have. Ask yourself who is really engaging in propaganda.

A fairly common, if profoundly dishonest, rhetorical technique is to caricature your opponent's words in such a way as to make it seem like they are inherently ridiculous, then easily knock them down.  The people who are already predisposed to agree with you will shout, "Amen!" and very few people will stop to say, "Wait a minute, that's not what he said!"

So it is with this MJ Roseberg hatchet job on David Brooks.  Now I can't say I'm a Brooks fan.  I find his "reasonable conservative" schtick a bit tiresome.  But really.  A more dishonest pile of nonsense than this Rosenberg post would be hard to find.

Let's start with the premise of the post, which is that David Brooks is:

surprised that Arabs want to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian issue with Americans.

Even a cursory glance at Brooks's words would reveal that this is bullshit.  It is quite clear that what surprised Brooks is not that they wanted to talk about Israel.  No, what was remarkable was that they wanted to talk ONLY about Israel.  Here's Brooks:

The problems between America and the Arab world have nothing to do with religious fundamentalism or ideological extremism, several Arab speakers argued. They have to do with American policies toward Israel, and the forces controlling those policies.

As for problems in the Middle East itself, these speakers added, they have a common source, Israel. One elderly statesman noted that the four most pressing issues in the Middle East are the Arab-Israeli dispute, instability in Lebanon, chaos in Iraq and the confrontation with Iran. They are all interconnected, he said, and Israel is at the root of each of them.

We Americans tried to press our Arab friends to talk more about the Sunni-Shiite split, the Iraqi civil war and the rise of Iran, but they seemed uninterested. They mimicked a speech King Abdullah of Jordan recently delivered before Congress, in which he scarcely mentioned the Iraqi chaos on his border. It was all Israel, all the time.

Now who knows what actually went on at this conference or whether Brooks's description is accurate?  I wasn't there, and neither was anyone else here, including MJ Rosenberg.  But it's safe to say that no one could possibly go to a conference with Arabs and be surprised that Arabs are concerned with the fate of the Palestinians, as Rosenberg says Brooks is.  However, given the myriad problems in the Arab world - from economic stagnation, to political tyranny, to continual instability, to the increasing power of Islamic radicalism, to war and terrorism, to the threat from Iran - to talk about NOTHING EXCEPT Israel is dysfunctional in the extreme.

Then, to compound the dishonesty, Rosenberg "imagines" that:

the reason Brooks was surprised is that, like so many Americans, he does not take Arab and Muslim concern for the Palestinians seriously.

This again is totally dishonest.  Rosenberg would have you believe that Brooks thinks Arabs are being disingenuous when they express concern for the plight of Palestinians.  But how can he draw such a conclusion when nothing remotely like that appears in Brooks's column?  Interestingly, Brooks doesn't even make the argument - a common and altogether true argument - that Arab "concern" for Palestinians has rarely resulted in them actually trying to improve their lives, rather than use them as political pawns. (Ever wonder why there are still Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria 60 years after Israel was established?)  Instead, Brooks simply argues that the singular focus on Israeli villainy and American complicity with it has caused them to lose any sense of introspection.  For a group that purports to be "reformers", this is a tad shortsighted.  Here's Brooks again,

There seemed to be a time, after 9/11, when it was generally accepted that terror and extremism were symptoms of a deeper Arab malaise. There seemed to be a general recognition that the Arab world had fallen behind, and that it needed economic, political and religious modernization.

But there was nothing defensive or introspective about the Arab speakers here. In response to Bernard Lewis’s question, “What Went Wrong?” their answer seemed to be: Nothing’s wrong with us. What’s wrong with you?

The events of the past three years have shifted their diagnosis of where the cancer is — from dysfunction in the Arab world to malevolence in Jerusalem and in Aipac. Furthermore, the Walt and Mearsheimer paper on the Israel lobby has had a profound effect on Arab elites. It has encouraged them not to be introspective, not to think about their own problems, but to blame everything on the villainous Israeli network.

The bit about AIPAC is particularly interesting - and disgusting.  There are few people who have done more to encourage the view of AIPAC as a sinister, villainous force than MJ Rosenberg.  With his frequent and almost completely dishonest AIPAC-bashing, he can now claim to be not only the pied piper of anti-Israel conspiracy theorists in the blogosphere, but also a fellow-traveller of Arabs who wouldn't bat an eyelash if the entire Zionist project were undone.

However, given the myriad problems in the Arab world - from economic stagnation, to political tyranny, to continual instability, to the increasing power of Islamic radicalism, to war and terrorism, to the threat from Iran - to talk about NOTHING EXCEPT Israel is dysfunctional in the extreme.

As for problems in the Middle East itself, these speakers added, they have a common source, Israel. One elderly statesman noted that the four most pressing issues in the Middle East are the Arab-Israeli dispute, instability in Lebanon, chaos in Iraq and the confrontation with Iran. They are all interconnected, he said, and Israel is at the root of each of them.

"How many mothers and babies were bombed in Lebanon? You answer, "Millions." Ha-ha."

I was not trying to be funny I guess your question was ambiguous.
Israel bombed all over Lebanon, but very few mothers and babies were killed AFAIK.
Do you have a number mothers and babies killed in Lebanon?

"heard of real suffering when they have"

There are plenty of examples in 20, 21 centuries and before of People who experienced terrible tragedies. Often there was no escape or better choice that could lead to avoiding such terrible tragedies.

I know that Palestinians suffered too but they suffering were not terrible tragedies.
Also, they could make better choices to avoid or lessen suffering.

God, I love Bradley The Daddy. You would think MJ had written "Mein Kampf" reading Bradley's hysterical reactions to the criticism of his fellow neoconservative.
I like Bradley. He is a pretty decent writer. But he is the best example we have at TPM of the American born Jewish guy who has never questioned a single lie put out by Aipac (he is a proud member).
Some of the other neoconservatives and Likud party guys here are not American born. So their paranoia comes perhaps from having experienced bad times in other parts of the world.
But Bradley who has been to Israel once or twice (the last time 10 years ago), who speaks and reads no Hebrew or Arabic, who simply believes in all his heart that the Jews are always right and the Arabs always wrong has the chutzpa to put out his Aipac factoids to Rosenberg who travels continuously to Israel and the Arab countries, reads the daily newspapers in Hebrew and Arabic and knows most of the players on both sides. (Bradley has never met a Palestinian).
But the main reason Bradley is pretty damn nervy to challenge an expert about a subject about which he is a novice is that MJ is Jewish, a proud Jew to boot, but one whose trademark here is his empathy not only for his fellow Jews but for Arabs and all kinds of people.
He may not always be right. But he is not trapped in some ghetto of the mind where ethnic chauvinists like Bradley live. I doubt MJ cares what this nobody says. But I do. Because Jews like Bradley (small-minded, parochial, insensitive to non-Jews) represent the antithesis of my tradition, the Jewish tradition.
And because every time a Jew like Bradley pipes up, it makes us all look like really closeminded rightwing bigots.
Let him stick to his accounting business and let the people who know the Middle East (seemingly most of the people who post here) hold this debate without his "the Jews rule" brilliance.
The worst thing of all is that when Americans finally figure out that people like Bradley (Abrams, Feith, Wolfowitz, Wurmser, Lieberman, Perle etc) have hijacked our foreign policy and seriously endangered our security, they may not be able to distinguish between the Israel Firsters and the American Jews like the rest of us who, although we care about Israel, are loyal only to America.
Am I calling Bradley disloyal? I am. If MJ wrote a piece denouncing US policy anywhere else on the globe, Bradley would be silent. If MJ called Bush a dunce and a nitwit, Bradley would be silent. If MJ said that we should give America back to the Indians, Bradley would be silent.
But let any aspect of Israel be criticized and Bradley rushes to the fray.
Bradley is utterly indifferent to the country in which he lives and raises his children. For him, home is somewhere else. Bradley's Fantasyland: not Israel, but AipacIsrael, a place few Israelis would even recognize.

I am not sure if addressing BradtheDad makes any sense, insofar it is not clear to me that he comprehends English.

He cites MR and Brooks at length, showing what are the statements that MR rather accurately summarized, and then he suddenly concludes that MR is "totally dishonest". That leads me to belief that BradtheDad is very skillful at cutting and pasting, and he is conversant with the use of blockquote, but his reading comprehension level is abysmal.

PS. English is my second language, but at least I try to use dictionary when I am not certain.

Zionism and partition remain the poison of false prophecy. Succumbing to ethnic or religious exceptionalism and the much-desired separatist tendencies (Jewish State, Muslim State etc.) are steps backwards that no amount of excuse mongering will remedy. No M.J., just like with Solomon we find that those who would cut the child in half are not the real mothers of truth or of peace.

Dear Petya,
"The myth that Palestinians are Arabs from other places who insists that they are "Palestinians" just of sheer hatred of the Jews "

Your argument is a straw man argument.

There is no question that a lot of of Arabs immigrated to Palestine in late 19th century and later. The exact number "has been a matter of some controversy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine
Look for "The question of late Arab immigration to Palestine"

MJ says:
"will continue to decline until we help end the conflict that spawned it."

The other Alan clearly explains that it's very hard or impossible to end this confict because there are many people inside and outside Middle East who are unable to accept Jewish state of Israel.

SeeDee

Seems to me Brad the Dad employs the same technique that he deplores in his opening sentence.

To selectively alter actual quotes (as is the case with some of the references to MJR's commentary) is dis-honest and an un-worthy tactic for one so obviously un-biased and brilliant as B the D.

I guess that given the way a person like Brooks think the interest of Arab elites in the Palestinian problem is quite perplexing.

One could think that his interlocutors were equally perplexed in the interest that Brooks showed to talk about the Sunni-Shiite split, the Iraqi civil war and the rise of Iran.

By the way, "rise of Iran"? To paraphrase Andy Rooney, "Iran is not a new country?!", Similarly, Sunni-Shia split dates ca. 1500 years after the "rise of Iran", but it is not exactly hot news either.

Even so, conventional explanations fail to explain the phenomenon. I would propose the following:

1. USA seems to exercise enormous influence in the region, with a long string of military bases, very close relationship with most of the regime, intense diplomatic effort affecting the remaining regimes, close cooperation with secret services in many countries in the region and a big military engagement.

2. Therefore it is important for Arabs to decide" do Americans care about Arabs? Is the American presence and engagement a reflection of some idealistic friendship, or is it more accurate to assume that Americans could not care less about the welfare of the Arabs.

3. The evidence from the rhetoric of American officials and intelectuals is mixed.

4. The attitude of USA to Palestinian-Israeli conflict can be used as a test case. And the results are not mixed at all.

5. Thus when an Arab talks with Mr. Brooks, he would be interested why America fails this test abjectly and expects any kind of good will in the region. And given scant interest in the welfare of the Arabs, what sincerity there can be in professed interest in rise of Iran (other that its impact on Israel and the oil supplies), Sunni-Shia split (other than its implications on Israel and the oil supplies), building democracy in the region (other than etc.)

I defy you to point out ANYTHING that I wrote that misquoted or misinterpreted anything MJ Rosenberg wrote. I think you'll find I quoted him verbatim.

Instead of throwing out lame insults, why not try to actually make a counterargument?

You were born too late. You coulds make a good living writing for Pravda in 1950s and later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan
"Every Jewish nationalist is the agent of American intelligence service. Jewish nationalists think that their nation was saved by USA (there you can become rich, bourgeois, etc.). They think they're indebted to the Americans. Among doctors there are many Jewish nationalists."[7]

"unbridled, evil-minded cosmopolitans, profiteers with no roots and no conscience… Grown on rotten yeast of bourgeois cosmopolitanism, decadence and formalism… non-indigenous nationals without a motherland, who poison with stench… our proletarian culture."… "What can A. Gurvich possibly understand about the national character of a Russian Soviet man?"

On April 1, 1983, the CPSU official newspaper Pravda ran full front page article titled From the Soviet leadership:

"...By its nature, Zionism concentrates ultra-nationalism, chauvinism and racial intolerance, excuse for territorial occupation and annexation, military opportunism, cult of political promiscuousness and irresponsibility, demagogy and ideological diversion, dirty tactics and perfidy... Absurd are attempts of Zionist ideologists to present criticizing them, or condemning the aggressive politics of the Israel's ruling circles, as antisemitic... We call on all Soviet citizens: workers, peasants, representatives of intelligentsia: take active part in exposing Zionism, strongly rebuke its endeavors; social scientists: activate scientific research to criticize reactionary core of that ideology and aggressive character of its political practice; writers, artists, journalists: fuller expose anti-populace and anti-humane diversionary character of propaganda and politics of Zionism..." (highlights preserved)

"I do not have a number. I would guess that thousands more mothers and children were bombed than should have been."
You didn't want to answer my question, beacause you know thast very few mothers and children
were killed.

"Here, again, you seem to say that the Palestinians have not suffered"

I'm not saying this at all.
I'm saying that "I know that Palestinians suffered too"

I'm just saying that their suffering in the war of 1948 were not a terrible tragedy. I don't think you dispute this.
I'm also saying that they were presented with choices. Their leaders could make a diffrent choices that could make life of Palestinians much much better.
I don't think you dispute this.

I could find this and quote it exactly from 1991 if we'd had the internet available for news articles back then, but we didn't so its from memory. There was a column in the Daily News by the late Lars Erik Nelson at the time of the first Gulf War where he said that the politicians had always known that when Americans started dying for Israel, the game would be up. We're there now. No one with an iota of integrity can say that the Israel lobby didn't push us into this disaster (though I see some wiggling out of it effort occasionally). Why did those Democrats who voted against the first Gulf War go along with this one, with a less credible president and no credible reason for the war? Money, campaign money for their ambitions. And American deaths be damned.

Especially when the right of self determination is otherwise a revered principle as is the principle that stolen property never attains title. After WWI, the peoples of the region should have had the right of self determination over their lands.

And rap music calls women ho's! And Jesse Jackson said Hymietown!

breakdown of Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israel in those years

I believe its about 4:1 ratio, but its a funny question. It almost doesn't matter.

The reason that the number of Israeli deaths by Palestinians went down in the late '90s was because Arafat was busy killing and torturing Palestinians to keep them from attacking Israel.

A big reason the numbers have gone back down is the Wall, but another big reason is the Palestinians are too busy killing each other for control of Gaza.

While its a laudable goal to get the number of Israeli deaths down, Palestinians die either way.

In fact, you could say that the entire Israeli "plan for peace" is not so much about peace but about the transference of the responsibility for killing Palestinians from Israel to Arabs (Egyptians, Jordanians, PA), where nobody will care (see: Black September)

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like Palestinians (and possibly by extension Arabs?) are not weighed at the same level. Israelis killing or killed is instantly noticed and reported, but not Palestinians.

The Palestinians themselves embrace this philosophy. They are currently trying to trade thousands of prisoners for one captured Israeli soldier. It just sends a message to the world that says, thousands of Palestinians are worth one Israeli. The whole suicide bomber thing just underscores the point.

I think Americans pick up on this, and its such a foreign concept to them that they overwhelmingly empathize with Israelis and don't "get" Palestinians. Truthfully, I'm afraid I don't get them either.

part of the land that has been in Arab hands for over a thousand years.

Actually, it was in Turkish hands, which are most definitely NOT Arab hands. The Turks are even an Israeli ally...

In fact, its interesting to note that all of the "Arab world" bordering countries... Turkey, Russia, Indian, Israel all regularly work together, train their militaries together, build weapon systems together. Likewise, they all have problems with their minority populations, terrorism and their territory - Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestinian Occupied Territories, Northern Kurdistan.

Yes, I know the Kurds are not Arab, either, but then if it wasn't for their dispute with Turkey they would be working even more closely with the Israelis and they are certainly working to push the Arabs out of their Iraqi territory as quickly as possible.

Perhaps its all a big coincidence? Then again, I imagine one look at what the Arabs of Darfur are doing to their non-Arab neighbors would be reason enough not to rest easy.

I love google... while trying to figure what Oslo Accords had to do with this post?

2003 Commondreams: "...In the internal struggle over peace in the Middle East, the neo-conservatives within the administration prevailed. Elliot Abrams, chief of Middle East affairs at the NSC, was their main man. During the Iran-contra scandal, Abrams had helped set up a rogue foreign policy operation. His soliciting of $10m from the Sultan of Brunei for the illegal enterprise turned farcical when he juxtaposed numbers on a Swiss bank account and lost the money. He pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and then spent his purgatory as director of a neo-conservative thinktank, denouncing the Oslo Accords and arguing that "tomorrow's lobby for Israel has got to be conservative Christians, because there aren't going to be enough Jews to do it". Abrams was rehabilitated when George Bush appointed him to the NSC.

In his new position, Abrams set to work, trying to gut the text of the road map. He was suspicious of the Europeans and British, considering them to be anti-Israel, if not inherently anti-semitic. But working in league with his allies in Cheney's office and at the defense department, Abrams failed to prevent Blair from persuading Bush to issue the road map at last..."

Grief no wonder the Arabs are worried... and then with Iran... Cheney overrules Rice on Iran prisoners. because Iran may boycott upcoming Iraq conference over diplomats detained in Iraq

Who is controlling our foreign policy?

IMO, improving the strategic position of Israel was only a part of, and not the determining factor in, the administration's decision to invade Iraq.

The same cannot be said for the motivations of some individuals, both in and out of this administration.

But these are different things.

What about the Democrats who voted for it, having voted against the first Gulf War and with visions of being president in their heads? (Biden, Kerry, Dodd - Who else?)

Another one I don't have a link to but I do remember it was a Charlie Cook quote from 2002 that Kerry voted for the Iraq War because of pressure from campaign money sources.

Really, they have never, ever come out with a good explanation. Usually that means the truth is so disreputable they can't say it out loud. They threw away American lives and treasure for personal ambition.

I am sure that for some Democrats, the thought that Israel might get a regional advantage also played a part in their vote, but let's not forget, the vote to invade Iraq was based on a subset of the facts known to the administration, plus a generous helping of outright lies.

I can't separate these factors from one another.

Ah yes, personal property of rich Europeans must not be taken as ill gotten gains. It is only the lands of brown skins that is to be taken in war or international duplicity.

You are shameless, aren't you.  The Israelis are guilty of a Holocaust. The  Palestinians resist out of the utterly understandable hatred (there has been no "truth commission," there was no Nurenburg tribunal, etc).  Yet, you simply dismiss the accounts as "untrue."

I think you can just drop the "neo" part, he is just another con.

There are, however, a half a million dead Iraqis as a result of this war.  Oh, I forgot, Arabs aren't people.  Don't bother to count them...

Not what I mean at all. Millions of people dead, wounded, displaced, never born, our country stuck in a war, for their ambitions to run for president, for the money to run for president. I can separate out like that and it would be wrong not to because it would be dishonest. We get a steady diet of lies already.

"the aftermath of even minor 'tragedies' (if you wish to label the losses of Palestinians circa 1947 as minor) sometimes festers and become major tragedies."

True, I see, we in agreement.
You seems to agree that the losses of Palestinians circa 1947 were minor tragedy, not a terrible tragedy. This was point point.

The the aftermath is a diffent issue, I didn't discuss it.
I glad that we can have intelegent discussion without name calling.
Regards,
- Davai

I’m sorry. I didn’t get the memo about a thousand Palestinians (and possibly by extension Arabs?) being worth one Israeli. And the Palestinians believe this as well? Well, if it was only a four to one ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths, I guess Israelis were still ahead (behind?) by a factor of 986 then. Those damned Palestinian pests.

And people wonder why the Right manages to portray the Left as un-American. Have some respect for the dead and their families...

The right can portray the Left as un-American when they have abettors obliquely accusing people of being un-American and defaming the victims of 9/11. If you were reading the “got lucky” part as anything other than the hijackers were lucky just to complete their attack and it was only chance events that the towers were brought down, then you are misreading it. I never said 9/11 was no big deal and was not a great tragedy. I just made the point that it did not portend the great and everlasting threat to our security at home as has been made out by the fearmongers.

I admit that the post was a poorly argued reply that I dashed off to BD perhaps too late in the night and after one too many. But, still, I did not disrespect anyone’s losses in that comment. And no, I was not saying that anyone’s lives are worth more (you seem to be saying that). Also, I’m not trying to have it both ways. I never said the Iraq War has caused great damage here in America. It is a disaster and has caused great damage there. There probably would not have been an Iraqi invasion if the American people had been asked to sacrifice.It is part of a larger war on Islam that many in power still want to expand into Iran and Syria, for starters, hence the so-called WWIII or war of civilizations (terms used by the Neocons).

Without knowing anything about you I’m confident that I love my country as much or more than you, which is why I’m ashamed of it these days. If you are not and would rather call critics of Bush‘s imperialism un-American, maybe you’re not the patriot you think you are. I wonder if what really bothered you about the post was the contention that we are carrying out Israeli policy over our own interests. If so, then who is the loyal American here?

1294

78

Yes, and by their enemies, too.

Davai, I guess your arguments are supposed to be some reductio ad absurdum, but I don’t get it. I dispute that more than “just a few” innocents were killed in Lebanon. I believe thousands of Palestinians were killed and maimed, hundreds of thousands were expelled and they lost their country. I think this amount to great suffering. If I accepted your interpretation of history, I would wonder why Palestinians were not thanking great and beneficent Israel for reuniting them with their brethren.

SeeDee

No, no real agreement, davai...yours is another previously cited (in this thread) attempt to attribute non-existent words (or omit words) for the sake of appearing correct. (To begin with, you omitted the important word 'IF').

The very word 'tragedy' implies a terrible event, or can you not understand the King's English?

And, again, it is doubtful if either you or I can properly measure the scale of 'terrible events' that have happened to another as far as the sufferer is concerned.

Tell me of your own personal 'tragedy' and I will not insult you by claiming that you have not really suffered a tragedy...I would try to extend my sympathy.

"I dispute that more than “just a few” innocents were killed in Lebanon."

Based on what? What's your source of information?

"I believe thousands of Palestinians were killed and maimed,"

What period are you talking about?
What's your source of information?

"hundreds of thousands were expelled"
True.

"and they lost their country"
Not true, they lost a small part of their country if you don't count Negev.

I read Mr. Rosenberg's columns here regularly and in doing so I constantly come acrsoss the term word "neocon," and i'm not sure I know what it means, but I'd like to.

To that end I've posted the question "What is a neocon?" 3 or 4 times and I have yet to get an answer. I can only surmise that;

1- No one knows.

2- No one wants to answer for some mysterious reason.

3- People here have better things to do than supply the answer.

4- Its too controversial a question.

So I'll ask again:

What is a neocon, and give me a few examples of those who are neocons.

I saw William Kristol tell Russert he supports "a robust foreign policy."

That's something that needs to be explained.

"about which you know nothing"

Let's use another standard.
Shut up if you can only say trivial banalities, if you don’t have any interesting fact or idea to share?
If we accept this standard, we all should shut up starting with MJ

Can you, Mark, point to your best original thinking comment on this blog that you are
proud of.
Is this comment is the best you can do?

On April 15, 2007 - 9:43am davai said:

In a context of this blog, neocon or likudnick is another name for a Jew who doesn’t agree with M.J.
Using this name shield you from charges of Anti-Semitism, and you free to say anything you always wanted say about Jews, but were embarrassed to say

Davai,

I'd rather have an objective analysis.

On April 15, 2007 - 9:25am Zionista said: JohnW1141,

...another Neocon, whatever that is.

Apparently, it's good enough just to know one when you see one.

Obviously Michael Crowley of Slate.com knows one when he sees one; this is where I got the reference.

http://www.slate.com/id/2113690/

"He married Rachel Decter, whose mother, Midge, is married to the neocon Yoda-figure Norman Podhoretz."

So maybe you will answer my question; what is a "neocon"?

cscs.

I've 'heard' the term 1,000 times but never saw an in depth analysis until I went to Wikipedia, thanks for the reference.

Still, it would be interesting to see how others here describe a "neocon," since the word is used so often here.

Sand,

thanks for the references, I put them in Fav to watch later.

Right now I'm watching Richard Perle on CNN as he re writes history on the Iraq war and gives us the benefit of his vast experience on what the future holds for the U S in IRAQ and what we should do there.

With freinds like Perle, who needs enemies?

Actually, Davai's description isn't far off the mark. "Neoconservative" has been so twisted out of its original meaning that it's barely recognizable. It is absolutely true that some people use it as shorthand for "Jewish hawks who put their loyalty to Israel above their loyalty to the US." Others use it as shorthand for "people who want an interventionist foreign policy with the goal of spreading democracy to places where it doesn't currently exist." The other term for this, of course, is Wilsonianism, after Woodrow Wilson, who tried to make it his business after WWI to promote democracy as well as peace.

In reality it has become an all-purpose insult for opponents of the Bush Administration to hurl at anyone who they disagree with. Just as some conservatives call anyone who they disagree with a "liberal".

Davai, from up-thread post: What period are you talking about? What's your source of information?

Though I somehow doubt you are interested in a straight answer, you’re online with the world’s greatest library at your fingertips. Look up any unbiased history of the Haganah, Irgun and the Lehi (Stern Gang). Try the decade from ‘38 to '48.

Counterpunch (William Martin 5/2004): http://www.counterpunch.org/martin05132004.html

But Deir Yassin was not the only massacre by the Israeli Defense Force. That army, under Moshe Dayan, took the unarmed and undefended village of al-Dawazyma, located in the Hebron hills, massacred 80 to 100 of its residents, and threw their bodies into pits. "The children were killed by breaking their heads with sticks ... The remaining Arabs were then sealed in houses, as the village was systematically razed ..." (Nur Masalha, The Historical Roots of the Palestinian Refugee Question).

Within the last 10 to 20 years, however, there has been an exponential increase in historical studies of the origins of the state of Israel which have coincided with the release by Israel of many, but not all, of the historical and military archives. Ben-Gurion University historian Benny Morris, as well as others, have systematically mined these documents and found numerous instances of massacres, and, by the way, not one shred of evidence for the frequently repeated official Israeli lie that the Palestinians fled Palestine because the surrounding Arab states told them to.

In fact, according to UN estimates, which some say are conservative, 750,000 Palestinians fled the site of the present Jewish state in 1948. Those refugees and their descendents now number about 4.5 million and constitute the largest and longest standing refugee population in the world. Many live in squalid refugee camps distributed in the surrounding Arab states or in the West Bank or Gaza, many retain the titles to their land, recognized by the British before 1948 or the Ottomans before that , and many retain the keys to their front doors of their former homes in what is now Israel, whether or not those doors still exists.

Fascinating, Davai, how you can suggest some people shut up because they are being trivial, while you variously brushed me off when I pointed out your dramatic but incorrect use of military terminology, or told me that I "took myself too seriously." It has been my observation that you complain when I point out that terrorists that you don't like are using weapons of rather limited destructive power, but, virtually any level of power used by the IDF is justified.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

“The trouble with peace propaganda is that when it is permitted it isn't necessary, and when it's necessary it isn't permitted” [Jacques Ellul]

I address this to Mr. Rosenberg and not to the Brooks column to which he responds.

I agree with Mr. Rosenberg's conclusion that a two state solution is the only possibility for peace to solve the israel / palestine problem, as who doesn't these days? I have great doubts, however, that such a solution will lead to "peace" in the middle east. If Israel were to magically disappear from the face of the earth, as apparently desired by at least some Muslim leaders in the middle east, that wouldn't mean that there would be "peace" in the region.

The key to Rosenberg's piece is the compound statement that

". . .[F]or the most part, Arab anger about (and sympathy for) Palestinians is utterly genuine."

Not only does Mr. Rosenberg not give us any facts in support of the statement, but he argues against it.

"And the fact is that the Palestinians have often been used as a pretext for incitement against Israel and Jews by the same forces that have done virtually nothing to ease the Palestinians’ plight. And also, of course, as a pretext for war. "

I have no doubt that the first part of the statement, referring to Arab anger is true. But the anger isn't about the Palestinians; the anger is about the Jews. More than 100 years ago Arabs were angry that Jews should have the temerity to purchase a little land in the area and attempt to drain it, cultivate it and live on it. Even more so, today, Arabs are angry about the existence of State of Israel on what, to them, should be Arab land.

But the second part of the statement? Sympathy for the Palestinians? Rosenberg asks why the Arabs shouldn't have sympathy for the Palestinians, and he is, of course, correct. They should. When, however, has that sympathy been no such sympathy in the past?

Prior to 1967 when Jordan and Egypt lost possession of the West Bank and Gaza in the war, which Arab thought that "the Palestinians" should have their own state? Which Arab people has invited the Palestinians to make permanent homes in their own country, rather than continue to live in refugees camps for decades? Which Arab people has provided money for food and education for Palestinians in these camps? (I know that some states have provided tens of thousands of dollars to families of deceased "martyrs" --- read "suicide bombers" --- but that's a different story.) And of course, we know about Jordanian sympathy for the Palestinians. Black September?

We're told, in essence, that if only Israel retreats to the pre-1967 borders, then things would be fine. If I thought that would be the case, I would be in favor of at least something similar to the 1967 borders.

I was overjoyed when the Oslo accords were announced. But here we are, 14 years and how many Jews and Arabs killed, and still we have no peace. Not from Bill Clinton and the relatively left wing Israeli government who pushed very hard for a two state settlement, and not from George Bush and a right wing Israeli government that pushed hardly at all, but did cede a lot of land. Instead we have had two Intafadas from various Palestinian incarnations represented by either politicians who didn't want peace, being personally stronger in conflict, or others who perhaps wanted peace but weren't strong enough to bring it off.

Yes! Let us have a two state solution, because that is the only thing that makes sense. (Alas, the two state solution proposed by the Saudis in their 2002 initiative sounds very much like a two state solution where both states are eventually Arab.) But I suspect that at this point, any such solution that ends with one viable Jewish state, even if it soothes some genuine sympathy for the Palestinians, will not deter Arab anger for the mere existence of the State of Israel.

We know that Rosenberg has his own arguments with his former employer, but AIPAC doesn't represent this American Jew, nor the rest of the 70 percent of us who are against the war in Iraq. (Of course, this American Jew and most of the rest of the 70 percent agree, no doubt, with AIPAC policies calling for a strong Israel and American support for Israel. Or maybe AIPAC agrees with our policies.) But in the meantime, please let us not continue to pretend that if only AIPAC would unhijack US foreign policy and force the Israelis to the peace table we would have peace.

Because that just isn't so, and that is a tragedy. For the Arabs. For the Jews. For all of us.

I responded to Mark who wrote:
"If you stop posting about the Middle East ..."

" has been my observation that you complain"

I don't complain.

"virtually any level of power used by the IDF is justified."

I've never asserted this.

So, How many women and children were killed in last year Lebanon war?

I guess we know the answer by now.
Very few.

"Deliberate bombing of a civilian electrical power grid, when no air defense network, falls under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: "No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
The tactics used by the IDF were a war crime, whether or not one person was immediately killed"

Can you compare and contrast tactic Israel in Lebanon and NATO in Serbia?

How many woman and chidren were killed during bombing there? How many civilian structures were destroyed.

Can you compare and contrast tactic of Israel in Lebanon with American operations in Afganistan and Iraq?

How many woman and chidren were killed during bombing there? How many civilian structures were destroyed.

Can you compare and contrast tactic of Israel in Lebanon with war in Vietnam?

Thank you very much for youn answers.
You show very deep understanding of history of Vietnam war. I don't have such I deep understanding, I have to agree.

Deep regards,
Really, really truly, truly yours,
- Davai

P.S.
"No, we don't know, at least by any comment of mine, nor do I intend to discuss body count"

Sure you don't . But I wonder if number were bad for Israel ...?

"There are fools here that claim that if the US kills enough Muslims,"

What are you talking about? what this has to do with our convesation?

I'm implying that Israel took a lot of care to minimize number of women and children killed in Lebanon compare to any other conflict/war after WW2 including Iraqi and Vietnam war.

Are you saying that this “body count” doesn’t matter and minimizing number of civilians killed should not be a priority?

Are you saying that during Vietnam war or Iraqi war the US goal was to kill as many civilians as possible? I don’t think so.

I'm implying that Israel took a lot of care to minimize number of women and children killed in Lebanon compare to any other conflict/war after WW2 including Iraqi and Vietnam war.

Are you saying that this “body count” doesn’t matter and minimizing number of civilians killed should not be a priority?

Are you saying that during Vietnam war or Iraqi war the US goal was to kill as many civilians as possible? I don’t think so.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

See answer at the end

See answer at the end

You, on the other hand, are not funny. You are representative of those apologists for anything Israel does that continues to decrease external support for it.

Assuming you are using the editorial "we", Davai, of course you don't need the specifics for which I ask. Since you variously don't understand it (who was it who stopped asking for me to compare and contrast), or suspect it might cast aspersions on Israel, you don't want to hear it.

RFCs are complex because they are precise, which you are not. I agree you do not need facts you will not understand.

If the US killed the entire population of Iraq, it would not justify Israel's actions elsewhere, any more than Israel's actions justify the actions of any other country.

I've notice your pattern of making sweeping military statements until your inaccuracies are pointed out, and then you lash out how anyone who actually understands the subject is pseudo-military or taking themselves too seriously. I didn't support US operations into Iraq and I didn't support Israeli operations into Lebanon, but I am sure that the US has made specific steps not to use some Israeli tactics. I am certain Israel violated restrictions on use of US weapons sold to it. As far as I am concerned, there's no more need to provide Israel with anything pseudomilitary, as you term it.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

I am not talking about war crimes anywhere else in the world, and, by war crimes and violations of international agreements, I am not speaking of numbers of deaths. You keep diverting the subject.

Fact: Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention precludes collective punishment. IDF attacks on the Lebanese civilian electrical grid were punishments to the Government of Lebanon for not controlling Hizbollah.

Beirut International Airport was a legitimate target because Hizbollah was being supplied, in part, by air shipments through it. Indeed, while it would have been a bit odd to destroy the organization that you want to do something, had you attacked the Lebanese military headquarters, that, at least, would clearly have been governmental and military.

Fact: Israel was sold US M26 unguided cluster submunition rockets for the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System, with the specific proviso they be used only against regular troops in the open. Syrian mechanized forces moving toward the Golan Heights, for example,would have been quite within the agreement, although the US no longer uses M26 rockets, having replaced them with the guided M30 and XM31.

In Lebanon, however, Israel was not fighting mechanized troops in open country. It was fighting against irregular Hizbollah forces, launching rockets in generally urban areas. Not only did the IDF use the M26 in violation of the sales agreement, but urgently requested resupply.

Had Israel engaged the same targets with M107 airbursting high-explosive warheads from M109A5 155mm howitzers, that would have been proportionate, consistent with US doctrine, not created an unexploded cluster submunition problem, and, since the shells are faster than the M26, had a better chance to kill the rocket crew.

However, it's one thing to say
Israel commited war crimes.
or you can say (I'm making up numbers)

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Much as body count became a cancer on the integrity of the US military after Vietnam, taking decades to heal and even now being imperfect, it remains a dangerous trap. To me, the key ethical matter is whether or not to use military means, since it is unrealistic to assume, in most plausible areas of operations perhaps outside deep water, that civilians will be caught.

Weapons are more or less precise, and tactics generally includes target selection. While the concept of centers of gravity goes back to Clausewitz, John Warden's 1990 applications of the principle to Iraq created at least a conceptual framework for maximal effect on a highly centralized enemy, avoiding the population. Saddam's Iraq was centralized. Surgical procedures are done with very small, sharp knives under controlled conditions. Even precision-guided weapons are not what one would want in an operating room, it is far more difficult to find a small center of gravity when fighting an insurgency where many civilians may be sympathizers, or a situation where the population of Japan, in 1945, were seen as combatants. Modern Iraq is much like the latter cases; there is no magic target system.

There were no magic target systems in Lebanon, so to say that any IDF response could be "surgical" was as ludicrous as OPERATION CORONET against Japan could have avoided massive civilian casualties.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

"Since you give me a choice, I am not going to play the numbers game, but instead speak to specific violations of laws of land warfare, and the situations for which US weapons were designed to be used."

I guess me have undisputed assertion that Israel killed hundreds times less civilians in Lebanon than France, Russia , US, leave alone Turke, Iran, Iraq, and on and on and on in wars after WW2.

You assert that Israel achive this result while still violating of international agreements.

I don't care. You do.
The end of discussion.

Duplicate

Well,
according to Amnesty International
"an estimated 1,183 fatalities, about one third of whom have been children"

So let's guess that 600 are Hezbollah fighters and 500 are civilians.

"Hezbollah fighters were using them as shields"
Are you saying they were not using civilians as shields?

Why in your opinion Israel killed 500 civilians in Lebanon ?
For fun ?

"Hundreds and, probably, thousands of Palestinians were massacred "

Probably hundreds Arabs were killed in 30-40s in palestine.
Probably hundreds Jews were killed in 30-40s in Palestine.

Since airbursting high explosive shells from US howitzers operated by the Israelis would have arrived over a rocket launching site faster than would the M26 rockets, rockets whose cluster submunitions have been rejected by many other countries because they effectively create antipersonnel minefields, I can only conclude the IDF was more interested in making Lebanese terrain uninhabitable than killing the Hizbollah rocketeers. There have been press reports of some IDF officers being quoted that the weapon selection was done to create minefields.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

You may be overly generous. My impression is that rather than knowing nothing, BtD and davai have a vast store of negative knowledge. I mean, something that is to knowledge as anti-matter is to matter.

What a relief! I read through all of the posts up until this one, in amazement. What, 200 posts? I'm thinking, NOBODY has actually read Brooks column! Why do you (any of you) bother to post on this thread if you haven't read Brooks' column? You have an opinion about it anyway, without reading it?

I kind of hate David Brooks, but I still keep reading his columns. Every once in a great while he comes up with a rewarding viewpoint. This column is one such. I 100% agree with Brad that MJ unfairly caricatures Brooks' column so he can criticize it. This is so obvious (IF you read the column) I can't see how anyone can see it otherwise.

The truth so courageously spoken. Bravo to you once again!

But I'm still curious why Israel killed civilians in Lebanon? What's your explanation?
We know that Hisbolla killed few civilian Israeli, because they couldn't kill more. But they tried very hard to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible.
I hope there is no argument here.

What About Israel?
Did Israeli try to kill more but were unable to find more civilians to kill or did they try to kill a few as possible but were unable to prevent death of civilians in Lebanon while fighting Hisbolla due to incompentence or for other reasons?

"legal Latin for "you, too!" No, it's not what I'm saying, I'm saying you 100 times worse than me.

"was consistently rejected by the Tribunal" We are not talking about legal Jury. We are talking about Jury of Public opinion.

So Israel doesn't have to be perfect, just better than everybody else.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Regarding Lebanon, you have been doing nothing but complaining about criticism of IDF operations there, and you reject any suggestion that inappropriate methods were used.

In point of fact, you implicitly admit to inappropriate force, by offering a tu quoque defense rather than even offering a sometimes-accepted defense of military necessity.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"We must destroy this village to save it" [anonymous US officer]

"Somewhere, a village is missing its idiot". M. Python.

This explains why, when I once suggested the neocons belonged in with the war crimes trials set, I was accused of proposing a "final solution."

Israel doesn't seem to consider non-Jewish human life of any value.  Killing civilians is there common tactic to raise the cost of resistance.

I don’t want to discuss this issue with you, I’m not a lawyer,

I can try to find and point you to legal documents of Israeli government , but I’m not interested in discussion of legal issues.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election." [Otto von Bismarck]

I believe that is the only time I used the word, with an explanation of why I was doing so. I still contend it is appropriate only in the most extreme circumstances.

If you prefer, I shall suggest that Davai does not give, to the underlying motivation of necessarily flawed international law, the nurturing concern of a pack of hyenas for a wounded antelope, the tolerance for dissent and individual liberties of Grover Norquist, or the humility of Idi Amin.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

"Why should this be different than other substantive issues, especially when you have no counterarguments other than emotion? "
You are a strange man, I have have no counterarguments at all, including emotion.
I'm not duscussing this legal issue with you.
"if the Israeli government reflected your views,"

I don't know what are the view of the Israeli government
about legality of bombing electrical power grid.
I'm sure they have good explanations. If you want to understand their legal reasoning, you should check it out.
Let me repeat, I'm not discussing this issue with you, I have no interest. Find somebody else to discuss this issue.

Mark Weinberg says" "Neocons are Jews"

Sorry - I just can't stomach your absolute describing what a neocon is...

Admittedly, there are a fair number of 'prominent' neocons in positions of extraordinary power who happen to be Jewish, but I believe our arch-neocons Cheney and Rumsfeld aren't Jewish! What about the 'leaders' (not the sheep) of the religious right? It's their 'thinking' which I think we need to discern not their religious identity.

E.g. with regards to our current crop of obsessively pro-Israel US neocon advisors, maybe it's the affects of the Holocaust that has been so viscerally internalized to the point that that they perceive all evil empires must be preemptively crushed, regardless of the consequences == maybe? However, I really don't think neocon=Jew... There is so much more to the movement, philosophy. Watch Power of Nightmares.

It's your claim, sweeping over 2000 years, with which you assert you are familiar with any similar campaign. My general impression is that you are rather ignorant of military matters, and, when challenged on anything of military substance, your response is to say that isn't applicable, or it's "taking oneself too seriously", or tu quoque.

It's your assertion, given without any supporting materials, so it's your responsibility to substantiate it. You need to define the conditions that make other operations comparable. Further, you need to consider not only immediate deaths but delayed ones.

Certainly, since you are familiar with every comparable operation in 2000 years, you will certainly be able to consider the relatively recent events between 24 April to 30 April 1916, 23 July to 28 July 1968, 2 April 1982 to 14 June 1982, 13 July to 16 July 1863, 20 December 1989 to 3 January 1990. What? I don't say which events or what outcome? An expert such as yourself should know.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Ah. So the side that can kill the most is right.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"I don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated and grown, will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again." [Anne Frank]

What was all that brouhaha about Switzerland keeping Jewish money or Jewish artworks.

Sorry, I thought we were talking about real property (which is always owned by the soveriegn), not personal property (which is generally understood to be owned by the individual). If we're just talking about personal property, then any Palestinians who had their personal property taken from them by Israelis (cash, art, jewelry) should make a claim. I doubt you'll find anyone disagreeing with that.

As to your second point, it IS always easier to blame the Jews, isn't it? Yet somewhere in Israel there's a liberal saying, "it always inevitably comes back to hurt the Jews... hundreds dead and Israeli in new danger because the Americans had to elect a Texas oilman with ties to the Saudi family as their president! Where there is no vision the people perish." If you want to blame a nation for the Iraq war, I would suggest looking in the mirror...

I don't think its a contest, as you seem to imply. I'm just saying that the Palestinians do not seem to be giving their own people the same value that Israelis (and Americans) give theirs - and its likely part of the problem in getting the two sides to understand and respect each other.

Maybe not thousands - over one thousand - specifically, Hamas thinks that 1400 Palestinians are worth one Israeli. Can you imagine if the Palestinians managed to capture, say, 10 Israelis and the Israelis offered to trade one Palestinian prisoner for them? I don't think the Palestinians would call that a fair trade, or agree.

Here's an article:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L16281198.htm

"Olmert told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in an interview on Monday that Israel was ready for what he called a "reasonable exchange" for Shalit's release.

"I want to get him back into the hands of Israel. He's our soldier. We are committed to him," Olmert told CBC.

But Olmert said he would not release as many as 1,400, the number of prisoners Hamas has said it demands Israel free.

Olmert declined to tell CBC how many prisoners he would free, and said: "But it will definitely not be 1,400.""

My position is very simple, if
one country killed one million civilions using the "right" weapon system, and another managed to kill only 500 civilians using "wrong" weapon, I know which country deserve condemnation and you don't know.

No, I don't know it. I hear Davai constantly defending what I believe to be, minimally, disproportionate military responses by Israel, and, in some cases, war crimes.

Faced with specific issues both in terms of the military techniques, or with either explicit international law (e.g., Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention) or customary international legal opinion (e.g., the doctrine of tu quoque) he hand-waves, claims others are worse, makes ad hominem attacks on technically specific claims, and generally holds a position that Israel will do whatever it pleases. I believe that steady probing at Davai's position does, in fact, reveal a position that is no more coherent than the side who kills the most wins. That such a position, I believe, is repellent to a good deal of Jewish legal opinion, such as:

Even when self defense is mandatory or permissible and one may kill a person or group of people who are seeking to kill one who is innocent, one may not:

1. Kill an innocent third party to save a life;


2. Compel a person to risk his life to save the life of another;


3. Kill the pursuer after his evil act is over as a form of punishment.


4. Use more force than minimally needed.

Several thoughts:

1. The survival, strength, security and prosperity of Israel will ultimately depend on the determination, self-confidence and spirit of the Israeli people. If they are determined to continue building a nation that reflects both their unique heritage and their unique ideals, then Israel will not only survive but prosper. This should not be a particularly surprising observation. The same may be said about every nation on earth.

2. There is a certain consistency in the declarations of Israel’s opponents:

a. In its original (1968) Constitution, the Palestine Liberation Organization called for “eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence,” “uprooting the Zionist existence,” a “struggle [that] will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished.”

b. At its Fifth General Congress in 1989, Fatah reaffirmed its commitment to “intensify and escalate armed action and all forms of struggle liquidate the Zionist Israeli occupation of our occupied Palestinian land.” It also called for opposition to “Zionist immigration into our homeland” “in light of the significant effect of the demographic factor on our conflict with the Zionist enemy.”

c. The Hamas Covenant of 1988 calls for jihad against “the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine” and the restoration of “the land of Palestine [as] an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslems until Judgment Day.” It insists that “the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgment.” Islam having, in its time, conquered Palestine, it thereafter became and remains today (according to Hamas) “the duty of the followers of other religions to stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam in this region.”

d. The Hizbollah Program (1985) declares that Israel is “the hated enemy that must be fought until the hated ones get what they deserve. . . . [O]ur struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated.”

3. To those of you who usually condemn Israel’s actions in these discussions, are there parts of these pronouncements with which you agree? Are there parts with which you disagree? In particular, do you agree that Islam must be recognized as sovereign throughout Palestine “because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgment”?

4. To those on the other side, who applaud every operation the Israeli government has ever staged against its Palestinian opponents, what do you expect to achieve by keeping the Israeli boot firmly planted on the neck of every Palestinian man, woman and child in the Occupied Territories?

Roughly 40% of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are refugees, and 43% of them live in refugee camps. Even if the total Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories is 2.5 million, rather than 3.8 million, that is still 430,000 souls living in the camps. Some of those camps, notably Al-Shati and Rafah in the Gaza Strip, have been in existence as long as the State of Israel has, and whole generations have lived and died in them. Children under 15 account for nearly half the population in the Occupied Territories, as well as specifically in the camps. They are the neighbors of Israel’s children, and all they have to look forward to is a chance to strike at the hated Israeli enemy.

Do you, who call yourselves friends of Israel, seriously believe Israel can offer its children a peaceful and secure future while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians continue to languish in refugee camps? Do you seriously believe that a never-ending application of force and degradation will, at some point, cause the Palestinian people, not merely their leaders and not merely the groups that have mobilized against Israel, but the Palestinian people to surrender and submit themselves to Israeli sovereignty over the lands they believe rightfully belong to them? Do you seriously believe the Palestinian people will tire of the fight and simply disperse to be absorbed into other societies? Your dream sustained your ancestors for 2000 years. Do you seriously think the Palestinians will abandon their dream after a mere 40 or 60 years?

Israel has exercised virtually unfettered sway over the Occupied Territories for 40 years. During all of those decades, what did it do to improve the lives of the Palestinian living there? What did it do to give substance to their hopes, their dreams, their dignity? What did it do to relieve the oppressiveness of the refugee camps? If the answer to these questions is nothing, then will Israel not pay a heavy price for such a massive failure of opportunity?

I don't think you are with the audience that supports US policy killing civilians anywhere.  We don't support 1 million in one place, a half million in another, or even 1 mistaken death penalty case in Texas.  So, what is your point?

There is no moral calculus that allows your Israeli murders to claim a higher ground based on only killing hundreds or thousands of civilians (particularly knowingly).   

Good point. It also seems that those who justify the continued occupation of the Palestinians by Israel by questioning the motives of other Arab states are cut from the same cloth as those who deny there ever were Palestinians in the first place.

Know your enemy well, for in the end that is who you become. ~~Old Chinese Proverb

Ok, I'll take this.
Israel, USA, all NATO countries deserve EQUAL condemnation because in case of Lebanon war and
Serbia war civilian deaths could have been avoided.
So I'll settle for showing that Israel is morally equal to the NATO countries.

Thank you.
- Davai.