Fred, please send the link to your equally critical, equally eloquent critique of one sided criticisms of Muslims on other web sites. This way we'll be absolutely certain, and not just "pretty sure," that one sided criticism of Israel is not of particular interest to you, as well as reflective of your lack of perfect objectivity.

But aside from that, let's not forget the original crime in this war, the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of natives from their homes and homeland, by Europeans who had a much more legitimate claim to a chunk of Germany than they did to a piece of sand on another continent that they had lived in for a couple thousand years or less, a couple thousand years ago.

The U.S. and Britain granting Jews land that wasn't theirs, inhabited by people who didn't mass murder the Jews, didn't make it right.

This war didn't start after al Nakba, and it sure wasn't "a land without a people, for a people without a land."

And last I heard, Palistine's military isn't even in the top 150, never mind the top 4.

And how many Israelis have been living in squalid refugee camps for 60 years?

How many Jewish women have died in ambulances at intentionally degrading Palestinian checkpoints?

How many thousands of Jewish children have severe signs of malnutrition and stunted growth because the PLO or Hamas decided to Put Israel on a Diet?

Israel committed the colossal original sin (with foreign support), is the occupier and not the occupied, and is a military superpower.

As Barak said, when asked what he would have done if he had been born Palestinian, "I would have joined a terrorist organization."

Einstein now appear prophetic with this quote:
"I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from practical consideration, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain -- especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state."

He also said this about nationalism:
"Nationalism is an infantile disease, it is the measles of mankind."

I think anything can be criticized in and of itself, without being immediately followed with an equal measure of criticism for something else.

And I believe this to be especially true when the two things don't neatly cancel each other out in being worthy of criticism.

So Fred, what would you have done if you had been born Palestinian? Live and die in poverty, humiliation, and occupation? Would you argue for Israel's right to natural growth as water and land shortages dictate? Would you applaud their efforts to bring as many Jews to Israel as possible every year, with economic incentives to live on recently bulldozed Palestinian land?

Terrorist reactions to such conditions are not excusable, but they are certainly reactions. And count the bodies if you're still convinced the I/P conflict is a well balanced conflict with equal blame.

I'm just glad there's some corner of the internet where I can discuss some of these issues with Jews and non-Jews alike, without an excess of self-censorship or virulent hatred.

I think there are some genuinely anti-Israel comments that people write on TPM from time to time. I don't see that from the featured cafe writers, but I do from some of the commenters. There are some folks out there who really do dislike Israel in a deep, visceral way. I don't like the underlying sentiments that are often present in such comments.

However, most criticisms of Israel I see here at TPM are from people who are deeply disillusioned and/or disappointed with Israel, not anti-Israel. Criticism from friends should be listened to even if difficult to hear. When friends criticize it does not mean they are enemies. Israel is not always right and as a nation Israel has made some very poor choices in how to deal with the people they live with and among. I think many, if not most, of the critics of Israel that comment here do so in order to help Israel get back on the right track: the track to a stable and lasting peace.

I think that if there seems to be lack of criticism of the Palestinians, etc... compared to Israel it simply highlights how out of balance the situation is over there and the fact that Israel is by far the more powerful party involved and is clearly responsible for the mistreatment of the people in the occupied territories. People generally expect more of Israel than to descend to the same level as the suicide bombers and their ilk. Many people, many supporters of Israel believe the Israeli government is subverting Israel's interests by using excessive force, by implementing policies that are brutal and sometimes bigoted and out of proportion to the threat or wrong they are supposedly in response to. The lopsided nature of the situation has been becoming more and more apparent the past 5-10 years.

So Fred, why don't *you* do some introspection and consider the real possibility that your energies here are completely misplaced.

You may turn out to be right, but I'm not yet ready to give up hope. What disappoints me about the thread, so far, is that while many comments are sincere in intent and civil in tone, they continue to defend criticism aimed exclusively at Israel, within a nation where almost all individuals without entrenched viewpoints see one-sided condemnations of this sort as less worthy of attention than more balanced presentations. The consequences, in my view, will be that continuing on this path will invite disrespect for TPM while doing little to help the Palestinians.

You also suggest that I should focus on "solving the problem", but my ability to do that is limited. My best hope is to support those with more power to act, and in particular, I support President Obama's efforts to reach out to both sides in a non-accusatory fashion, while pressuring the Israeli government to freeze settlements.

I can't resist one further comment on the challenge to me to help solve the problem. Many years ago, the TV comedian George Gobel explained how decision making was divided up in his family. His wife made the little decisions, he said, while he made the big ones. She, for example, decided whether to sell the house, buy a new car, send the children to a different school - the little decisions. He made the big ones - should we admit Red China to the U.N., what should we do about the Berlin wall, and so on.

Thankfully, we here are working on the big decisions, and leaving the little ones to others less qualified to make the big ones.

I recognize that balance of this type is not the typical way the blogosphere operates, but am I naively idealistic in hoping that TPM can aspire to a higher standard?

Fred, the only reason I keep hanging out here since 2005 is that people with this opinion, like you, keep showing up. I have been times when I get as disgusted with the place as with all other political/news forum sites in teh blogosphere, and there have been substanial lengths of time when the standard braying blogosphere back takes over here, but then, dang it, someone like you shows up and drags me back in again to hoping again on that "higher standard" thing. :-)

(Oh, and on the issue in particular that inspired your post, in my opinion, after reading over several years, the worst thing about many Israel bashers is that many seem to have lost all sense of perspective about how the issue fits into the bigger global picture. Their passion often sounds to me like they think if the Israel/Palestine problem was solved, that the world would be all hunky-dory. In focusing so much and so passionately on IP and getting all worked up about it, they way way way overestimate its importance. I.E., they don't see that few in China (pick another example if you don't like that one) give a damn about IP, that how it plays out may be more like the line in Casablanca about "not mattering a hill of beans in this crazy world." Also, by doing so, they fall prey to the Arab dictator magician trick of distracting your attention--ignoring problems that affect their own lives, or the lives of the majority of the people in the world, for that matter, in order to get all passionate about IP "over there." Some even fall prey to the conspiratorial thinking that is a standard reaction to living in a dictatorship. It's like a continuing soap opera that keeps people distracted from the major conflicts and problems.)

> "When the Israeli government, or elements within Israel commit wrongs, they deserve to be condemned, but when condemnations are reserved only for Israelis, the unfairness of that perspective also deserves its share of condemnation."

Well, practically speaking, how should critics of Israel and/or it's government be more fair?

Should a permanent Israel/Palestine thread can be set up, and posters who wish to submit criticism of one side would be required to include criticism of the other? Mr. Moolton, who evidently knows even-handedness when he sees it, could moderate.

Additionally, should a calculus of even-handedness be formulated for the convenience of thread participants who are more morally confused than Mr. Moolton is? If so, what would the basis of such a calculus be?

- Corpse-by-corpse and cripple-by-cripple? Should every poster who wishes to mention an incident of X number of Palestinian killed or maimed by the IDF or rampaging settlers also mention an incident of an equivalent number of Israelis killed or maimed by Palestinian militants?

- Do we distinguish comparisons of "official violence" (IDF vs. Hamas or al-Aksa militants) from comparisons of "grassroots violence" (settler thugs vs. deranged backhoe drivers)?

- If we can't match Palestinian and Israeli casualties one-for-one (which might be difficult), then would it be sufficiently even-handed to say that, for example, for every 10 or 100 Palestinian casualties one Israeli casualty should be mentioned?

- Are we simply counting measures of blood, or do we also factor in economic factors? For example, if one is to mention the many digits worth of damage to the Gazan economy caused by January's fighting, should we also mention the cost of property damage and PTSD treatment in Sderot?

- Would even-handedness be enhanced if mentions of Palestinian atrocities against Israelis were accompanied by adjectives such as "unfortunately" and "sadly," or connectives like "however" and "nevertheless"?

- While we're trying to be more even-handed, should we also be obliged to mention each side's treatment of its own?

For example, while one is mentioning to toll of Qassam rocket attacks on the inhabitants of Sderot, should one also ask why Mizrahi immigrants from Yemen, Morocco, Kurdistan, or Iran were settled in dusty, impoverished tent cities along the Gaza border, rather than in more prosperous or fertile parts of Israel? Or why the IDF has permitted smuggling to go on (to this day) along the Gaza-Egypt border such that Hamas has rockets to launch, rather than shutting down the smuggling (and hence the rockets) in 2005?

Or, while debating the "need" for the IDF to enter Gaza last January, would it be more even-handed to ask why Palestinian groups see it to spend time and money on building rockets, torturing and executing political rivals, practicing nepotism, and blaming "the Jews" for many of their problems rather than on building infrastructure and a civil society?

Fred, so many knowledgeable people have commented, i hesitate to. I read your piece and all the comments, then went outside to pull weeds in the garden for a bit. I just could not grok your problem entirely. I kept coming back to thoughts that you had deep feelings that were being injured by your perception of non-evenhanded comments, but whether by the commenters or guest bloggers, i could not tell. You mention that unbalanced criticism (bias)tends to prevent convincing others of a writer's point of view; do you mean they aren't convincing YOU? I enjoy learning from folks with lots of different perspectives; i even get on the fox news pages sometimes, just to figure out where some of their minds utterances are coming from.
Many of us were very slow to come to the notion that many recent israeli policies were wrong and antithetical to peace in the region, and thoughtful criticism and even anger has been helpful to my education.
I do not know your history, beliefs, or cultural identity...much less your spiritual beliefs or personal psychology. But i am wondering if the conflict and tension being out of balance on TPM may not be more about your own issues, like the ones that ring around inside our skulls as we talk in imagined conversations, and can become our own enemies over time.
I am not saying this well, fred; when i was in my garden i just kept having these pictures and impressions of your pain...maybe even anger...and that perhaps all the words you have used here have not really addressed the root issue of it. Are there family members, maybe, that you have these same discussions with in your mind? Sometimes to figure out why an issue got so big, it's good to trace the cause of the conflict in ourselves.

To various commentators above, thanks for some provocative remarks

Wendy - I appreciate your thoughtful response. It suggests to me that you approach issues with greater perceptiveness than most observers, and would explain why you can extract useful information from biased comments - saving the wheat and discarding the chaff. In my experience, most observers, faced with either one-sided commentary or commentary that attempts to delineate more than a single side, will tend to give less weight to the one-sided version. That is the practical consequence, and unfortunately is a reason why some skillful but dishonorable politicians strive to appear receptive to opposing arguments - they realize it works very well. Beyond the practicalities, there is also, as I’ve suggested, a moral dimension to unfairness employed for the sake of advancing a particular viewpoint, and the unfairness of others doesn’t erase the moral imperative to be fair. Finally, I don’t believe my remarks here reflect a deep-seated psychological conflict, and I hope you will interpret them as meaning what they seem to mean.

Tankard2 - Readers should judge for themselves whether I hate Palestinians and want to see them drowned in a bathtub.

Fmhoyt - I think you make it too complicated. Individuals with a sense of fairness know how to express it without a need for formulas. It doesn’t require anyone to assign equal culpability to each side in a conflict, but it does require a recognition that there is blame to be shared.

Eds - I basically agree with you. I wasn’t suggesting that anyone be denied the right to express a one-sided view, but I question how much it will advance the cause that person is espousing.

Fred -- The question I had reading your post was whether you were talking about Cafe contributors (i.e., the people's whose posts appear automatically on the front page) or Cafe reader bloggers. I don't think there's any question that the people who write on the front page of cafe mostly come from a pretty strong pro-peace camp perspective. That's broadly in line with my personal views. As a general matter I've wanted to get some other perspectives in the mix too. Not so much because I'm worried about the discussion being one-sided but because I'd like to see more exchange sometimes. Agreement isn't always that interesting editorially and seeing the disagreements get argued in these pages can be edifying and also productive. I really don't think Bernard Avishai or MJ Rosenberg or Todd Gitlin can be seen as anti-Israel, to put it mildly. On the other hand, there are definitely posts I've seen from Reader bloggers that do strike me as anti-Israel and even ones that have made me feel uncomfortable to have posted on the site. As a general matter we try to err on the side of inclusion, though there have been a number of cases where we've suspended or permanently banned users who we felt were veering into anti-semitism and hate speech. So, to summarize, I need to have a better sense of who you're talking about to be able to respond to your critique.