With the likes of Robert Fisk retiring I am glad to see Ron step up to the plate and say the things that need sayin'. Israel has raised the bar a little higher in their latest massacre with the use of white phosphorous. Saddam Hussein was hanged on lesser charges.

Nice work Ron. Take good care over there.

"to launching a one-sided "war" on Palestinian civilians in Gaza"

This is disingenuous. Hamas wasnt "successful" in killing more than one Israeli so the war becomes a one sided war against Palestinian civilians. Thousands of rockets flying into Israeli towns, schools, nurseries, mean nothing... I can understand the discussions surrounding proportionality of the Israeli attacks in light of the rocket attacks but to completely ignore Hamas's aim of killing and terrorizing Israeli civilians by shooting its rockets aimlessly into civilian populations is not helpful in any way in bringing about a peaceful dialog.

Sam, I'd suggest looking toward Europe for help in ending the Israeli system of aparthed. American politics are dominated by two vehemently anti-arab and I'm afraid increasingly racist groups: Christian Zionists and Jewish Zionists. You can see by the tone of the responses to your article what you're up against. You may as well be making a case against Jim Crow to the sons of the confederacy.

Allow me to answer the defenders of Israel uber alles:

• “Palestinians are too stupid to live. Deciding to be the aggressors, and refusing to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, is stronger than the desire to pursue peace and prosperity for themselves and their children.”

Odd how Adolf said the same about Jews. He said they’d killed Jesus, angered Yaweh by worshipping idols after being freed, and got thrown out of most countries. Plus Jews refused to acknowledge the Reich’s right-- a la Israel-- to exist as a racist country.

Germans first asked Jews to leave. Gotta be pretty “stupid” not to listen, right? I mean so what if you were born in Germany, defended it in war, helped it prosper in peace…right? Jews were as foolish as Arabs who didn’t flee when asked by Jewish thugs. Anyway, the next plan was to move the Chosen People to Madagascar, Sudan, or some other place. Most refused. Later they helped round each other up. What wisdom!

See how easy it is to bias reality?

• “ the US should withdraw and let Israel off the leash to deal with the Palestinians as they see fit.”

Exactly what the world told Germany: “Go for it, Gunters! Nothin’ says lovin’ like Juden in the oven!” How’d that work out for everyone?

• “You got Gaza and we can all see what you've done with it. Nothing other than use as a platform for missle attacks.”

Jews got Warsaw, too, after German troops left and, like Israel, sealed its borders. Ungrateful, starving Jews then used it to launch molotov cocktails at the Fatherland’s "finest, most moral" soldiers. History repeats itself.

• “Years of suicide bombers and rockets, disqualify you….

As if Jews never volunteered for missions they knew they’d never come back from. As if they didn’t use terror to steal land from Arabs. As if they didn’t smuggle weapons and store them in temples! As if Israel isn’t a militaristic, socialist, racist theocracy!

Unlike Israel, America has defined borders, a Constitution, an egalitarian democracy (actually a representative republic), and neighbors it does not occupy. That’s why more and more American Jews are waking up and realizing Seinfeld ain’t Sharon. They’re tired of subsidizing a state that spreads antisemitism by committing war crimes in the name of Judaism.

Israel has never fought equals. It always starts fights against those it thinks it can beat. The world knew Nasser was bluffing. Jews did, too. Yet Israel hit first, cowards that they are. German soldiers actually fought equal enemies (using panzers against pistols only in Warsaw). IDF punks, on the other hand, drop DIME and phosphorous bombs on women and kids in UN buildings. Is it any wonder the world cheered when Hizbollah cleaned their clock? It wasn’t just Muslims, either. Lutheran farmers in Minnesota chuckled, too.

Israel was created by terrorists (Irgun, Haganah, Palmach) who, like the Stern Gang, targeted civilians. They attacked unarmed Arabs. As Leah Rabin, wife of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, said: "We [Jews] used terrorism to establish our state. Why should we expect the Palestinians to be any different?"

Israelis seem to love killing. They never say never to war. They assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte when he balked at creating a racist state on Arab lands. They also killed Arab POWs, U.S. sailors on the USS Liberty, American activists like Rachel Corrie, news reporters, medics, ambulance drivers, etc. Kill-kill-kill!

Ashkenazis learned well from Nazis.

Germany had only a few years to complete its Holocaust. Israel has had to slow-cooked Palestinians for 6 decades, constrained by modern communications. It doesn’t want the world to see Shoah survivors brutalizing others as it "solves" the "Arab Problem."

“Good Germans” at least had the excuse that news traveled about as fast as the horses that moved the Wehrmacht (mechanized units were relatively rare). “Innocent Israelis,” on te other hand, are ever-informed in our electronic age. The knowingly and voraciously vote to ‘crush” weaker others.

It seems to anger Israelis that no matter how hard they pound Palestinians, the latter won’t meekly walk to death like European Jews did. Since they’re too cowardly to fight Germans-Italians-Japanese, the IDF vents state rage on those who remind them of Jewish vulnerability…just like the man treated like a dog at work kicks his bowzer, not the boss.

So what was so was wrong about Germany’s actions? Israel’s apologists say it’s okay to collectively punish civilians. That’s what Germany said during Kristollnacht. Israel-Firsters also say it’s okay to act savagely toward terrorists. That’s what Goebbels did toward Jews. He “proved” they were a moral, health, demographic, cultural, and existential threat to Deutschland. Plus, like Israel, Germany wanted “lebensraum” free of The Other.

If you compare the German-Jewish population then to the Israeli-Arab one now, the actions are comparable. The problem for Israel is mass media. Despite its attempt to ban reporters during its last Mike Tyson vs. Woody Allen “war,” pictures got out anyway. Ovens being verboten, Israel has to make due with pulverizing entire city blocks so none of its brave nancyboys suffers a paper cut.

As for making the “desert” bloom, how hard is THAT when you steal water and extort billions from Uncle Sucker (who not only writes off your “loan” each year, but gives it upfront, making American taxpayers forfeit interest)?

• “the Palestinians…refusal to come to grips with their own political shortcomings”

As if Israel politicians aren’t perpetually facing corruption, racketeering, and sexual harassment charges! Also, any sex-slavery involved in Israel’s many brothels?

• “Martin Luther King was pro-Israel and repeated this position AFTER the Six-Day War.”

He also cheated on his wife. He made mistakes.

• "Israel owes its existence to the United States…”

Too true. Absent America's billions, weapon resupplies when the “world’s best soldiers” got routed, and vetoes of UN resolutions...Israelis would be selling flowers and oranges from tents.

• “ it was the USSR that provided the vital weapons that Israel needed.”

Czechoslovakia actually. But what are facts to Zionists? Russia supplied weapons to the “other Semites”, like Arabs in Egypt.

• “ the US was trying to persuade the Jews NOT to proclaim a state.”

Too bad it failed. Israel has been an albatross around its neck ever since, a “blight unto nations.”

• “ it is the Jewish people who built up Israel”

With American largesse. Which I’d not count on too much longer.

• “ British encouraged both the Jews and Palestinian Arabs to set up autonomous bodies that would adminster their separate communities.”

You mean the same Britain that promised Arabs liberation if they helped defeat Turkey? The same Britain that decided the best way to have the Axis atone for its misdeeds would be to move Jews from antisemitic (“get-rid-of-Yids”) Europe to Arab land?

• “ The Jews set up the Jewish Agency which served as a proto-government.”

As if Arabs were lawless at the time! As if similar Jewish “agencies” didn’t help round up fellow Jews for German death camps!

• "why should we do something unpopular like collect taxes when we can get the British to pay up?".

Whereas today Palestinians collect taxes that Israel keeps in order to starve Arabs into leaving lands Jews covet.

• “ the majority of the operating expenses of the Palestinian Authority comes from handouts given by the US and EU.”

The Knesset gets its table-scraps from America and Europe, too. So? Palestinians can't earn their keep because Irael bombed its airport, kaboshed the building of its deep-water port, and sealed its borders.

So, er, what was the output-per-Jew at Auschwitz, given all the freedom and assets there?

• “Arafat…did little to set up an infrastructure that would enable state institutions “

You mean the guy Israel killed when he wouldn’t give away more Palestinian land?

• “Arafat instead worked assiduously, through propaganda, to militarize the people”

Whereas Sharon and others already have the approval of “peace loving” voters to slaughter Arabs huddled in refugee camps.

During the recent “war” rabbis outdid German priests in urging soldiers to murder. Settlers and others also treated the pounding of Gaza like a picnic. They sat on hillsides watching the “fireworks.” They were like the commanders during the Warsaw intifada who, watching Jews jump from burning buildings, sipped schnapps and laughed at the “parachutists.”

• “Arabs…are demanding that the Jews be expelled from Judea/Samaria. No Jews wanted.”

You mean the Arabs who are not allowed on Jews-only roads…just like Jews weren’t allowed on Aryan-only trams? How odd, the similarity between Germans then and Jews now.

• “There is a death-penalty dating from the time of Jordanian rule for Arabs who sell land to Jews.”

What’s the life expectancy of Arabs who date Jews? How many permits does Israel grant annually to Arabs to build their own houses on their own lands?

• “ what is he willing to offer to Israel to make the concessions he wants?”

How about the right to have a racist state AFTER Israel, like Germany, pays for its crimes? That is, allows back the refugees it chased away; offers compensation for all the pain and suffering its inflicted; and gets off the land it stole?

I know it would be hard. Israelis wouldn't be used to it. They'be be like Germans forced to give back gold, art, housing, and land THEY stole.

• “ to completely ignore Hamas's aim of killing and terrorizing Israeli civilians by shooting its rockets aimlessly into civilian populations is not helpful”

Just like it’s not helpful for laws to distinguish between potential and actual harm? So Germans were RIGHT to kill millions of Jews because, well, if Jews had had better weapons...yikes?

On the other hand, if Hamas gets better weapons Israelis might have to act civilized instead of being the rogue nation its devolved to.

• “ Israel was willing to leave behind the hi-tech agricultural facilities the Jews built there”

Paid for by America, by the by. How odd, though, that Arabs wouldn’t trust Israelis who left trojan horses. After all, the same Israelis bomb power plants, starve kids, destroy medical supplies, etc. Besides, if it’s “odd” that Palestinians would destroy enemy leftovers, how much odder that Jews killed their own kids at Masada when Rome offered something far greater than greenhouses: Life itself!

Also, per the generosity of Jews: “Jewish settlers would have destroyed the greenhouses to keep them out of Arab hands as they were forced out of Gaza Strip, The New York Times said.”

• “Many stong economies, including those of post-war Germany, Japan and British colonial Hong Kong built up prosperous societies will under ‘occupation’ ”

How many were ruled by Israel?

Sooo...what WOULD happen if-- like the USSR, Siam, Catalonia, Prussia, Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa-- Israel suddenly “disappeared”? Did Russians die when the Soviet Union went kablooey? If Israel went belly-up in the noon-day sun, Jews could move to Antarctica and rebuild Israel II. Or live come to America. Or live anywhere they wanted, provided they play nice and stop being arrogant, belligerent, brusque, and racist.

One can hope.

L’ Chaim!

Sam,

You're exactly right. The blood of the people of Gaza is on our hands. The sixty-year occupation and degradation of the Palestinian people is owned by the United States. Our tax dollars and blind policy fuel apartheid and butchery. Those Israelis and Americans who are in any way proud of what happened in Gaza are very sick people. Our participation must end now.