The US has obviously not been able to solve the problem. Neither Israel or its opponents appear to be the least bit serious about solving the problem. Maybe we should stop pretending that we can solve the problem and it might sink in with Israel and the Arabs that they're going to have to solve the problems themselves.

Perhaps rather than simply turning a blind eye and letting things unravel to the point where Israelis feel compelled on their own to act right, we prompt them with some pro-active measures such as cutting, or seriously curtailing, the money and weapons we send them every year.

It worked the last time we got serious about it, back when Pappa Bush began pulling back on the free money we send to Israel every year. That was the last time we saw serious progress on settlement occur, and it was undone when Clinton and Bush the Shrub began sending money that way with no strings attached.

It worked when the world got serious and divested from South Africa, and it can work again.

In the meantime, as long as we send cash and weapons, we have a moral obligation to intervene.

How long can the Left look away without taking real action?

There are more Jews living in the United States than in Israel. It is time for them to stand up for interests of the United States, support a moderate compromise two-state solution and tell AIPAC and its ilk to go to the hell the creation of which they are supporting in the Mideast. It will be still be hellish over there and America will be condemned by both sides for its pains, but most people in most countries in the rest of the world will support us, at least to the extent that the idiocies of Cheney and W. Bush haven't turned them into permanent enemies. Then we can focus on some real serious problems rather than constantly being pulled to be a lap dog for one side only in a centuries-old feud over a small patch of far-off desert.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/48881

Nobody knows at this moment whether Hamas is deterrable. The question depends on whether Hamas actually intends to fight to the last man and on the efficacy of the IDF’s ground war. But surely it is also true — according to just war theory, no less — that the sovereign state of Israel, in an attempt to protect its citizens, is allowed to discover whether deterrence is possible. I note that since August 2006, Hezbollah has been awfully quiet on Israel’s northern border; and that since 1973, so have Syria and Egypt.

Outside of Gaza and Palestine Zionist Jewish criminals

"But my friend in Israel asked me for some help on shaping questions that he might pose to various Israel pols."

My question would be: How specifically do you see this ending between you and the Palestinians?

I think they've lost the answer to that question, if they ever had one. As an outside observer, it's totally lost on me how Israel plans to do anything other than run these police-state ghettos, filled with millions of impoverished and hopeless people, indefinitely.

Tragic that the Jewish dream of self-determination has ended this way, but perhaps predictable.

At Haaretz, Gideon Levy speaks truth to power: "Everything is permitted, legitimate and just. The moral voice of restraint, if it ever existed, has been left behind....Nobody is coming to the rescue -- of Gaza or even of the remnants of humanity and Israeli democracy. The statesmen, the jurists, the poets, the authors, academe, and the news media -- pitch black over the abyss."

Let us not speak ill of the deceased, but marbles do tend to come loose late in life, Gretz. Despite your irrelevant pretense, nobody here is claiming that if Israel stops shooting itself in the foot, and Israelomaniacs in the US stop trying to brainwash other Americans (e.g. if America gets a president able to deal effectively in foreign policy and if Israel lets Palestinians have a state) that thereafter there would be "no more Islamic violence." Just as no one in 1948 could have claimed with a straight face that if Zionist terrorists were given a state that there would ever after be no more Jewish violence in the Mideast. Let your Mama rest in peace. Think of Rabin's widow instead.

look, it's really simple:

Israel was made a Jewish state in 1948 by the UN. it happened. Israel exists. you may not like it, but it's the reality of the situation. and despite what Iran and Hamas would like, it's not going away.

now we can either choose to deal with that reality, or we can pretend it ISN'T reality and claim that the Jews are "occupying" Palestinian land.

for the poor schmuck above who asked me about ethnic cleansing, let me just say that if that's what the Israelis are trying to do, they're really really bad at it! they called civilians before the fight, fachrissakes, to warn them to get out of danger. if your goal is to murder people, that's a really stupid way of going about it.

all the Palestinians have to do is decide that they'd rather have their own state alongside Israel than continue this ridiculous war forever. that's all. Israel exists. Palestine can exist too. it's their choice.

but as they say, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. that's never been clearer than now, as Hamas idiotically continues to fire their cut-rate rockets into Sderot.

I agree that Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Lately, however, Israelis seemed determined to match them, blunder for blunder. Latest missed opportunity was to declare victory after achieving a kill ratio of circa 400 to 4 killings two days ago. These two groups of hypocrite killers (Israeli government, Hamas) deserve each other. The US of A needs to stop tolerating the pitifully repetitive propaganda flung at it from both sides. The US Congress needs to represent AMERICA in this mess, for a change.

Sens. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin - the top two Democrats in the chamber - and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell all described Israel's actions as understandable.

"I think what the Israelis are doing is very important," Reid said. "I think this terrorist organization, Hamas, has got to be put away. They've got to come to their senses."

Meet the Press 1/4/09

Attention all Israel-haters: my friends and I will use eevery lawful means to keep you from hijacking the Democratic Party. Barack Obama will not cross Dick Durbin on this--trust me.

Mr. Clemons, please answer this: if Hamas leaders had come to the U.N. in 2007 and said "We hate Israel and we'll never have diplomatic relations with it, but we'll make sure nobody in Gaza attacks it, and we won't try to smuggle in from Egypt thousands of rocket launchers and munitions, but we do seek international help to allow goods in for civilian use, would we be having this dialogue right now?