"For more than a thousand years Jewish blood was cheap, very cheap. It is no more. That is one of the meanings of Zionism and of sovereignty. Anyone who sheds Jewish blood will pay and pay dearly. That is also the only possible alternative to a settlement. But Gaza doesn't want a settlement. It has made its choice."

Well put, I couldn’t agree more.

In fact I was wondering why Olmert held off for so long and didn't go after those who have been firing rockets at peaceful communities in Israel more vigorously before.

"For more than a thousand years Jewish blood was cheap, very cheap."

And now, fortunately, it's Palestinian blood that's cheap, right?

"...an examination by Haaretz reveals that the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces stands at 816 during those two years [2006 and 2007], and that of them, 360 were civilians who were not affiliated with any armed organizations...."

http://tinyurl.com/2gf2jt

Can you really see Hamas and friends practicing Israel's restraint?

"And now, fortunately, it's Palestinian blood that's cheap, right?"

Another false comparison:

Mc, Nazi Germany killed tens of thousands of Brits during WW2. However, the Brits and its allies ended up killing millions of Germans. Does that make the Brits the aggressor and the Germans the victims?

If Hamas fires rockets into Israel or sends suicide bombers to kill Israel then it has to take responsibility for all the deaths in the ensuing battles.

Molly Simon, I believe your letter to Andrew Sullivan made it to Haaretz on Rosner's Blog:

www.haaretz.com/.../rosnerBlog.jhtml

"Jews, blacks and Obama

Read this Andrew Sullivan post, quoting a reader:

"Sadly even my mother, who lives in Florida, says about Obama, "I just don't trust him." She can't give any reasons, though she will usually mutter something about Israel". "

mollysimon: Nope... but that's not what's at issue here.

In the first place, Peretz refers to 'remarkable restraint', but that restraint still translates into a situation in which about 45% of the Palestinian casualties in Gaza were civilians, non-combatants. (The next line of that article is "Data from B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, show that 152 of the casualties were under age 18, and 48 were under the age of 14.) Since those are statistics that would never, ever otherwise appear in The Spine - because Peretz likes to picture the fighting in Gaza as a nice, clean little war, where only Bad People get killed - and since that Haaretz article came out only a few days ago, I figured it was worthwhile putting them in.

Second, any calculus of human life that includes a claim that the death of an X will cost Y group dearly, inevitably also means that Y lives are, in comparison to X, cheap. That's the attitude that Peretz takes throughout his postings on The Spine and this post was no different.

jacksondyer: "If Hamas fires rockets into Israel or sends suicide bombers to kill Israel then it has to take responsibility for all the deaths in the ensuing battles."

We've been through this before, but... the fact that Hamas attacks Israeli in no way lessens Israel's duty to try and avoid civilian casualties in attacks in Gaza. (You'll note that the Israeli government itself recognises this duty, at least in theory: it's mostly in the more bloodthirsty reaches of the American blogosphere that it's denied.) In any case, and as I said above, my goal here was to insert a reminder that lots and lots and lots of civilians have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli activities there in the last two years... because Peretz will always dismiss their deaths as unimportant.

Every single death in Gaza was the result of Hamas action, not Israeli. The "duty to try to avoid civilian casualties" does not assume that none will occur. We pro-Israel people are far from bloodthirsty and those who excuse the root cause of civilian casualties and blame the victims of attacks for defending themselves should look in the mirror.

Molly, did you see this?

"Berlin mayor condemns attack on Jewish high-school students

Associated Press ,  Jan. 17, 2008

Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit on Thursday condemned an attack on five Jewish high-school students, calling it "intolerable."

The five students, who ranged from 15 to 17 years old, were on their way home Wednesday in downtown Berlin when a group of four "punks" set a dog upon them while shouting anti-Semitic slogans, police said in a statement.

The dog chased a 15-year-old, who managed to run inside a bakery and escape injury.

Witnesses called police, who took all four suspects into custody and captured the dog before anyone was harmed."

Why would any sane Jew want to live in such an environment?

btw: the link for the above story is:

www.jpost.com/.../Satellite

"We've been through this before, but... the fact that Hamas attacks Israeli in no way lessens Israel's duty to try and avoid civilian casualties in attacks in Gaza."

scottmaceachern

Yes we have been through this before. Israel does as you yourself noted try to avoid civilian casualties. However, if Hamas and its allies hide among civilians some civilian casualties are inevitable. Protecting its citizens is a government first reponsibility. The governing body in Gaza doesn't seem to care about its fellow citizens.

" (You'll note that the Israeli government itself recognises this duty, at least in theory: it's mostly in the more bloodthirsty reaches of the American blogosphere that it's denied.) "

The blogosphere is a huge place and most bloodthirsty comments I have seen are directed against Jews and Israelis.

To whom are you referring here at TNR? Peretz merely said that for the first time in two thousand years Jews can defend themselves and do. This is a sentiment I share and its hardly a "blood thirsty comment."

Jackson, as deplorable as the Berlin incident is, similar incidents sometimes happen in the USA also. My son was severely harassed when he attended middle school in the '70's in New Jersey. Fortunately he was able to defend himself. There are pockets of intolerance everywhere, but you shoudn't condemn an entire culture because of it. What is intolerable is when the govenment ignores these incidents or, worse, encourages them.

Come on r-ennis the context is totally different.  

We are dealing with a country has spent the last 60 plus years trying to teach its citizens about the Holocaust that it perpetrated.  Don’t you find it discouraging that pockets of Jew hatred still remain there, and that the word Jew is once again being used as a term of insult?

Have we become so jaded that we react to news of antisemitic intolerance with a shrug?

Sorry Jackson. I have to disagree. Cultural antisemitism, like racism is ingrained. Of course I am discouraged by it and disheartened. But I can and must live with it as long as we do not take it lying down and defend ourselves. Fighting back breeds grudging respect.

It is institutional antisemitism that is unacceptable. I see the beginnings of that in England but not even in France, much less Germany. I do not blame any Jew who decides to leave England, although I recently read that the richest Israeli billionaire recently moved to England to avoid high Israeli taxes, so maybe even there, the rhetoric is overblown.

I'm with Scott on this one. I found Marty's words chilling, if only because I could so easily imagine the exact same language and logic tripping forth from Edward Said, with "arab" substituted for "jew" and "jewish." I'm not one for moral equivalence but it's very easy, too easy, to reduce this conflict to a simple narrative of OurSide having been screwed by history and every fresh outrage deserving, eye-for-eye fashion, a devastatingly violent response.

I don't pretend to have any answers here, and fwiw I agree with the pro-Israel voices here that the arabs' politics of frenzy and lack of any real leadership have made it nearly impossible to arrive at a negotiated solution that they can actually abide by. But language matters. They're still people, not objectified characters from an old tale of tooth-for-tooth vengeance.

"I could so easily imagine the exact same language and logic tripping forth from Edward Said".  And I can imagine it from a defender of the Warsaw Ghetto when he finally realized that enough is enough.

Jackson:  Thanks for the link (both links).

Tep:  Do you mean this?  "Anyone who sheds Jewish blood will pay and pay dearly."  I don't see it as eye-for-eye.  Otherwise, why avoid taking out civilians? Marty is saying that if you fuck with Israel, they will come after you, the INDIVIDUAL, and all accessories to the crime.  They're after perps, and they're after the perps so that the mortaring Israel's cities will stop. Or at least be reduced.  Period.  It's tragic that these cowards choose to hide among civilians.  Anyway, Marty has in the past articulated the suffering of the Palestinian people.  He's even said the majority of Palestinians don't choose this sort of fanaticism.   I don't think he's blood-thirsty.  I think he's furious.  And righteously so.  To quote The Who:  "We're not gonna take it."  

Though it comes to me that I am treating Marty's words with Talmudic-like parsing!  This may be a bad sign, indeed.

Is the Warsaw Ghetto the right analogy to Israel's situation in 2008? Again, I'm not trying to undermine the historical truth or the emotional power or political salience of the holocaust. I'm pointing out that a duel of such narratives will not do either side any good. It can only lead to escalation, to a spiral of reprisals, and a withering of any kind of imaginative sympathy.

As a realist, I believe that peace is likely to result from one side's being utterly trounced, but my own realistic understanding of human psychology also tells me that dueling narratives of the sort we're seeing here need to lead to mutual comprehension, not mutual suspicion and demonization, if the spiral is to have any chance of being broken.

jacksondyer: "Peretz merely said that for the first time in two thousand years Jews can defend themselves and do."

peretz: "...we do not know what percentage of the Gaza population is not rabid. Probably not many...Anyone who sheds Jewish blood will pay and pay dearly."

It's even easier to weight one side as of far higher value in this calculus of human worth when the other side is 'rabid'. Because after all, the rabid (almost always rabid animals, right - no one speaks this way of humans) are just going to die anyway, aren't they?

Words matter: they not only inform others of what we think, but they set a stage for the evaluation of events in the real world.

Beyond that, read what I wrote in response to mollysimon's post: on The Spine, dead Palestinian innocents will only be mentioned to have their relevance dismissed. It's I think salutary to be reminded of the death toll of such innocents on _both_ sides. And the responsibility of the Israeli government to avoid civilian casualties if at all possible is too important to be dismissed with the claim that, anyway, Israel can just outsource blame to Hamas.

“I'm with Scott on this one. I found Marty's words chilling, if only because I could so easily imagine the exact same language and logic tripping forth from Edward Said, with "arab" substituted for "jew" and "jewish." I'm not one for moral equivalence but it's very easy, too easy, to reduce this conflict to a simple narrative of OurSide having been screwed by history and every fresh outrage deserving, eye-for-eye fashion, a devastatingly violent response.”

That’s not what Marty said.

As Molly says Marty’s point was clear enough: “fuck with me and we will defend ourselves.” He then went on to point out that historically Jews have not been in a position to fight back.

I find the “eye for and eye” comparison more troubling than the Warsaw Ghetto analogy. The fight in the Ghetto was one of the few places during WW2 where Jews were able to fight back against an enemy that was trying to annihilate all the Jews of Europe. Now, while all analogies are in a sense double edged, this analogy cannot be extended to Gaza since it is the “weaker” force that is trying to murder Jews and not the other way around. As soon as the Gazans stop shelling Israeli towns Israeli will stop attacking them.

This is an issue of self defense and not of “an eye for an eye” which by the way is the wrong translation of the Hebrew original which reads “ayn tachat ayn” literally “an eye under an eye” which is usually interpreted as  a proposition of exchange rather than retaliation. Hence in Jewish law you can substitute a payment of equivalent value for the loss you have incurred.  This isn’t a case of lex talionis, or the law of retribution, but of wergild or law of compensation.

The history of this misunderstanding goes back to ancient times but here at least we need to be accurate.

r-ennis: "We pro-Israel people are far from bloodthirsty..."

That may be true in general, but I have read comments here on The Spine filled with blood-lust, contempt and brutality toward, in different contexts, Muslims and Arabs/Palestinians. And sorry, but that death-toll of bystanders in Gaza that I mentioned - 45% of the total deaths - is rather too high to be dismissed with a hand-wave and a claim that it's all Hamas' fault.

scottmaceachern, Peretz' has to do with self defense and not with retribution or wanton killing.

r-ennis said:  “Sorry Jackson. I have to disagree. Cultural antisemitism, like racism is ingrained.”

It is part of Western and Islamic cultures but it is not true that it is “universally ingrained.”

Moreover, antisemitism is not the same in all Western cultures. Antisemitism in the US is very different than antisemitism in Germany or Eastern Europe because the historical as well as social context is different.

“Of course I am discouraged by it and disheartened. But I can and must live with it as long as we do not take it lying down and defend ourselves. Fighting back breeds grudging respect.”

Does fighting back “breed respect?” Not from antisemites. If you are successful though self defense measures may keep you alive to keep on fighting.

“It is institutional antisemitism that is unacceptable.”

This has become a cliché. All antisemitism is unacceptable, r-ennis.

There is no institutional antisemitism in Germany today (or in Europe generally), but that hasn’t stop the attacks on Jews by individuals and groups.

“I see the beginnings of that in England but not even in France, much less Germany.”

Well,   it was worse in France a few years ago but seems to have subsided a bit recently. The problem in England is at the Universities and among some professional classes and it seems to be migrating to other parts of society. Germany on the whole has been free of the kinds of academic and media anti Jewish bias one finds in England. Still, I recently read an article that said that some Professor there were jealous of their English counterparts because they could attack Israel while the poor Herr Professor had to hold his tongue. This in itself should tell you something.

“I do not blame any Jew who decides to leave England, although I recently read that the richest Israeli billionaire recently moved to England to avoid high Israeli taxes, so maybe even there, the rhetoric is overblown.”

Billionaires tend to think that their money can build an impregnable wall around them. They are wrong. He will be protected from the worse of it, but I’d like to know his view of England five years down the road.

So scottmaceachern how would you deal with the rocket fire from Gaza, assuming that you cared enough about  Israelis that you wanted to put an end to it?

"That may be true in general, but I have read comments here on The Spine filled with blood-lust, contempt and brutality toward, in different contexts, Muslims and Arabs/Palestinians."

yes, mac and I have read comments filled with blood lust and contempt towards Jews and Israelis.

Let's deal with what people are saying on this thread, shall we?

Molly - thanks for your clarification, but I see a gap between your emphasis on individual "perps" and Marty's casual shift from "anyone" (= individual) to "Gaza" (=polity), as follows:

"Anyone who sheds Jewish blood will pay and pay dearly. That is also the only possible alternative to a settlement. But Gaza doesn't want a settlement. It has made its choice"

Of course it's hugely difficult to keep in mind the distinction between the Gazan/Hamas "perps" and the innocents of Gaza. But doing so is absolutely essential, I think.

jack - to your q to mac re how to respond to Gazan fire, I can't speak to tactics but from a strategic standpoint I know that my preference would be to find every possible way to * divide and conquer *. Divide the rational, sensible arabs from the berserkers: in the best case, the former rise up and throw off the latter; in the worst case, you throw a wrench or two in the latter's military plans, and hinder their effectiveness. Either way, you retain moral high ground and keep your eye on the ball.

Divide and conquer: funny, but isn't that more or less what the US should be doing in its own war against jihadis?

If you want to go by what professors are doing or saying, you do not have to go as far as Europe. The US is no paradise for Jews or pro-Israeli sentiment in universities, jackson.

Don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say that anti-Semitism was acceptable. I said that I can live with it and have, right here in the US. The German incident you cited involved adolescents. I do not know where or when you were brought up, but in the slum streets of Brooklyn where I was in the '50s, such occurrences were an almost daily event. If we did not fight back, we were tagged as victims. If we did, the harassment stopped.

Pretty amazing. And a huge victory to the victim-based massive and persistent Palestinian propaganda,

Even Irsael's friends here sound apologetic and remorseful.

I wonder if there's one country on this globe besides Israel whose civilian centers can be regularly  bombarded by its self-proclaimed enemy, and then be blamed for killing, what was it again, too many enemy INNOCENTS?

We discuss whether Israel kills too many, or should conquer and divide, whether Israel is blood thirsty or just tries to defend herself. This is as surreal as it can get actually.

You all know how any other country would respond (by ruthlessly leveling whole neighborhoods, in case anyone doesn't know), and how everyone across the world would applaud it for that. Or at least shut up and understand.

But not Israel. No. We immediately engage in bookkeeping, so how many were killed? Versus how many that they killed? And how many of these were innocent? Yes proportional? No proportional?

This policy will not prevent the local population from supporting Hamas, coz maybe we've all forgotten with whom we're dealing here. All this "restraint" and "we don't want to hurt civilians" is accepted by them, at least by the leadership and probably by a vast majority of the populace as well, as a joke.

We've become the laughing stock of the Arabs here. Sissies, women, chickens.

But the fact that Westerners debate about whether Israel is humane enough or not, well, that's the ultimate proof of the completely unbelievable success of their propaganda: If you manage to be regarded as a victim, you can get away with anything. No one can touch you.

You nailed it babigail. End of (academic) discussion. One has to play by one's enemy's rules.

"The German incident you cited involved adolescents. I do not know where or when you were brought up, but in the slum streets of Brooklyn where I was in the '50s, such occurrences were an almost daily event. If we did not fight back, we were tagged as victims. If we did, the harassment stopped. "

I did my own share of figthing, r-ennis.

In any case, don't know what you saw in Brookilyn.  Germany isn't Brooklyn, completely different histories, end of story.  

The fact that Palestinian civilians vs. militants are killed at a high ratio is a function of a) scum militants hiding among women and children to use as human shields and b) mis-cateogrization of who a militant is and who a civilian is.  How many civilians in Gaza are NOT actively supporting the militants and providing them with cover?

Additionally, the fact that Palestinians have been killing Israelis at a higher Soldier-civilian ratio is because of a) the effectiveness of the wall b) the ineffectiveness of the worthless, but deadly bottle-rockets fired into Israel.

Make no mistake, if the Palestinians got their hands on a nuke, they'd use it.

Thanks so much, babigail...

scottmacechern -- it's really pretty simple: stop the rockets, the suicide bombers trying to get into Israel to blow people up. Then Israel can stop having to retaliate. And the checkpoints can come down,  Cut the numbers game crap -- it's any state's responsibility to protect its citizens. When terrorists lob their bombs out of civilian houses and neighborhoods, that's where the self-defense will be directed. That's their choice, not Israel's. And, by the way, given the clear signals from Hamas, hezbollah, the wider Arab world ... they don't plan on stopping their attacks any time soon. This is about Israel's existence and survival -- too bad if it bothers you that necessary self-defense kills innocents deliberately placed in the line of fire by their own side, which then goes on to use those deaths for antiIsrael propaganda...Israel has no control whatsoever over that.

teplukhin2you -- would be nice to divide and conquer...given the reality, how would you do it? I'm serious here. Morality is nice, but you don't get to enjoy it if you're dead.

LISAH-- I'm a pragmatist, not a moralist. I'm not an Israeli or jewish, neither am I a military or diplomatic expert or expert on anything, to be honest, but it seems pretty obvious to me that Israel is locked in a war that is an unending stalemate, without prospect of either winning decisively or negotiating a settlement that will end the war. I suppose this situation could be tolerated by a Sparta-like nation of tremendous resolve and determination-- and I have enormous regard for the Israelis in this respect-- but I'm skeptical that Israel can maintain the Spartan path, for these reasons:

a) the arab population is soaring

b) Iran is on the verge of getting nukes,

c) related to b), Israelis are beginning to leave Israel

d) unrelated to the above, an increasingly hispanic and asian America will be less Euro-centric, hence less knowledgeable about the holocaust, and may well in another decade or two abandon the close embrace of Israel that has lasted since 1967.

All of which argues, to my mind anyway, for a strategy of accomodation, co-optation, buying off rather than one based mainly on force. I don't have the details, but I would be seeking areas of  compromise with every arab government in the region, and ways to marginalize Hamas, just about  everywhere I possibly could. Starting with Jordan and the House of Saud.

Irredentism is a nazi ideology whether it be Palestinian irredentism or Zionist irredentism. The root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that the World has allowed Zionist irredentism to take root and grow in the Occupied Palestinian Territories over the last four decades.  These are four decades during which Israeli malice and Western malfeasance have ensured that the Palestinians have endured the overwhelming majority of the suffering. The Israelis have never been held accountable for the occupation of the Palestinian Territories and the brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people consequent to it. And there will be no solution until Israel is held accountable  - until Israel and the Israeli people are asked to pay a price for all the blood they have spilled and continue to spill.

And in their moral cowardice the people of Israel have on the whole acquiesced to this evil. They have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to those who counseled morality, legality and sanity in their treatment of the Palestinian people. Instead they allowed the neo-Nazism that is the core ideology of the Zionist irridentist settler movement to become the core ideology of their Nation. Their cowardice is no different from the cowardice of the German people when they failed to stop the moral descent of their nation six decades ago. And just like the Germans the moral failure of the Israeli people has been encouraged by major public intellectuals (and even people on this site) who have allowed their immorality to consume their intellect.

And last week we saw the tragedy continuing with yet another American President going to Israel and declaring it to be groundhog day in Munich. The world has patiently given Israel four decades to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and it has failed - leaving Israel and its neighborhood far worse off. And this failure will continue as long as the US listens to the those evil sirens who do not want and do not seek a just solution to the conflict.

"The Israelis have never been held accountable for the occupation of the Palestinian Territories and the brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people consequent to it."

?!

Coo-coo.

Teplukhin, even if right, and it’s a big if, your proposal will take time to implement. The rockets though are falling now and the Israeli government has to act now.

As far as your other points go, I wouldn’t count Israel out, yet. Israel has always been in crisis since before it declared independence in 1948 and people have always emigrated as well as immigrated out of and into the land. Oftentimes it’s the same people doing the emi-imi-gration dance.

As far as Gaza goes, there is not co-opting or talking with Hamas, as I am sure you know, and the country is talking to all the parties you mentioned. I doubt the Saudis will help much, but Jordan needs to be coaxed by the West into assuming responsibility for the West bank security.

In the meantime the only way to deal with the Kassam rockets short of going back into Gaza is for the Israeli government to do what it is doing targeting those who fire the rockets.  

 Look who is baaaaaaaaaaaaack! ndmacknazi.

And she has learned a new word since last she posted: "irredentism", the dumb Kopf uses it incorrectly, though.

"Irredentism is a nazi ideology whether it be Palestinian irredentism or Zionist irredentism."

Irredentism, whether one agrees with it or not, isn't Nazi ideology since Nazi ideology is a program of conquest and expansion and not a historically based ideology.  

Otherwise it's the same old McNazi posting here: Lots so antisemitic insults but little else.

Teplukhin: "I'm skeptical that Israel can maintain the Spartan path"

That's Olmert for you who earlier said: "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of winning", and sure enough, he botched the last Lebanon war which left Hezbollah damaged, but regrouping and rearming, and also showed Hamas a way to hit Israel with rockets.

The current choice for Israel, Teplukhin, isn't between fighting Hamas, Hezbollah et al or coopting Arab countries in order to marginalize Hamas.  It is fighting H&H ruthlessly in order to disabuse Arabs one more time of their wet dream (no Israel),   and ultimately get a shot at settling the conflict.   Every time Israel shows weakness, more wolves, not doves, show up in the neighborhood.

The reality currently isn't pretty.

If you want to argue about possible "areas of compromise" between Israel and "every arab government in the region",  you ought to show any examples of that.  Otherwise, it's just an illusion, and pursuing it (Peres' "the new ME")  hasn't brought much benefit  to Israel or US.

I really think that this is a rare exercise in the amazing flexibility of the human mind. A live demo of how easy it is to swerve and reshape it as one pleases.

For example, if Israel's official policy  would have been to issue a set of appropriate warnings that for each rocket shot at her as of a certain date a house in Beit Lahia would be destroyed, this would be accepted as fair, and by now about a thousand houses there would have been leveled.

No one (but the legacy antisemites) would have doubted the justice of this kind of reaction, civilians or no.

Instead the Jewish state, for her own reasons (weakness of her leadership, reluctance to push the Gazan populace into the arms [both meanings...] of Hammas, reluctance to damage the talks with Abu Mazen, etc. etc.) has chosen this surgical individual targeting and really does her best in the given circumstances to avoid killing civilians.

So now we're faced with this strange method, and we can discuss whether she's careful enough in this individual tactic or not.

I suppose that had Israel decided to throw firecrackers at Gaza after each rocket attack, we would be now deeply engaged in a debate about the degree of necessity of the damages caused by the firecrackers. Maybe here and there a house/field/car would have caught fire, who knows, so was that really proportional or necessary?

Had israel decided to curse the Pals after each attack, we could be sitting here deliberating the Arab famous mentality and the grave ramifications of cursing them.

There's no limit to the training and remodeling the human mind can undergo.

Meanwhile we've forgotten that Israel's responses are not the subject to be discussed. It's the fantastic fact that a functioning regime has been attacking civilians of another country for years on a daily basis that should bother everybody. Certainly not the responses of the attacked country.

But the human mind is so pliable, it can be turned in any direction, no matter how absurd.  

teplukhin2you --your response to me is pretty accurate on the realities, and that's what makes the situation one that can't be solved in the short run (say about 800 years or so, given Arab intransigence and hatred of all us infidels, not just Jewish ones), and probably not in the long run. Behind the scenes, Israel has contacts with various Arab governments, but so what? Israel can talk forever, concede on everything, and it will just endanger it more, since Hamas, Hezbullah, and many Arab leaders with their own problems with Islamic extremists make it clear their goal is to destroy Israel. That's not even including their hangers-on -- look at the mackenzie thing above blaming Israel for not solving the problems caused by daily rocket attacks from Gaza, daily attempts at infiltrating suicide bombers in from the West Bank, etc., etc., etc. "palestinians" (okay, mackenzie, mouth off all you want) and other Arabs/Muslims are just victims, right? Have no obligation to be responsible for their actions, right?

Sometimes (maybe often) problems have no solutions. This is one of them. So Israel has to continue protecting itself...current leadership is sadly incompetent as babigail, sabaka, and others have noted...but given the apparent inability of Islamic moderates to take on the large number of terrorists, the targeted attacks and similar actions are inevitable measures.

r-ennis: "One has to play by one's enemy's rules."

? That's quite a recipe for a spiral to the bottom ranges of human viciousness. You might note a contrary opinion, from Aharon Barak when the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the Landau guidelines on 'moderate physical pressure' (that is, torture) in 1999: "...This is the destiny of democracy, as not all

means are acceptable to it, and not all practises employed by its enemies are open before it..."

That is an approach to the issue that would at least avoid the possibility of Israel becoming merely Hamas-with-passports.

No, scottmaceahern...the court decision shows which party to this conflict is the civilized one.

jacksondyer: "Let's deal with what people are saying on this thread, shall we?"

I was replying to a claim that such statements did not exist. But fair enough, let's do so.

As for your question about what's to be done about the firing of Qassam's and mortars against Israeli territory from Gaza, let's start by turning the question around: how effective have Israeli military activities been at suppressing these attacks? The answer is - not very, particularly given that these are harassment weapons, and so the numbers fired can be quite low and still have significant effects. The first ones were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel in early 2002, about 3.5 years before the Israeli government gave up control of the area. This suggests that (a) the present strategy of attacking the weapons before they are set up, harassment and interdiction fire into the firing areas and assassination of the makers and users of the systems is not going to eliminate their use and (b) even re-occupation of the Gaza Strip would not do so, although it would probably decrease their frequencies.

So, what's left? Well, you could I suppose level large parts of the area, which would make some folks on The Spine happy. Besides the human cost, this as well is unlikely to actually stop the bombing. (Apparently, the psychology of Gazans is such that this would not make them even more prone to support the extremists...) Or you can do as teplukhin suggests, and try and re-engage with at least some of the population of the area, in order to lessen support for the groups using these weapons. But there isn't much evidence that the present, military strategy is working well.

LISAH: "Cut the numbers game crap -- it's any state's responsibility to protect its citizens."

It is... but it isn't the case that a state can use any imaginable means, or inflict disproportionate casualties, in doing so. There _is_ a numbers game here, and it's played on both sides, but what do you expect? Those Israeli and Palestinian numbers are in both cases peoples' lives. And again, what I'm cstruck by the fact that what I'm arguing with here is the opinions of many people on The Spine, not so much the _policy_ of the Israeli government.

One can, of course, talk about the cowardice of Hamas and other such organisations, because they don't separate themselves from the populace and constitute themselves as a regular military force. However, they simply are not going to do that, because it would result in their immediate extinction. The IRA did the same thing, as did ETA; ANC did the same thing in South Africa: Irgun and Lehi did the same thing in Israel (and I don't see Yitzhak Rabin or Menachim Begin dismissed as cowards on that account). You can condemn them for their actions, but the reality of such organisations is that they will always keep themselves within the general population.

LISAH: I entirely agree that that attitude is the civilised one - long may it reign, in Israel and elsewhere. But what do _you_ think of r-ennis' quote? Here it is again: "One has to play by one's enemy's rules."

scottmaceachern, tep's suggestion, even if it would work,  will not end ongoing attacks.

Re-occupation of Gaza would end such attacks. Certainly it would sharply reduce its frequency. The number of such attacks on the West bank is minimal. Still, I doubt that people like you would support Israel's re-entry into Gaza.

Aside from that toppling Hamas might also help since any Palestinian governing party, that wanted to, could put an end to it.

scott, your whole analysis up there is completely wrong.

Let's start in the end: who says what is and what is not proportional? You do? The danger of a school or kindergarten getting hit in the Sderot area is OK for a state to live with?

There is no "proportional" response to this kind of attacks. BTW, I'm a 100% nihilist, and still can't figure out how a large-scale disaster hasn't happened there yet. I only hope you're not suggesting waiting until it does. I'm sure you are as certain as I am that it's only a question of time.

So? We wait? Will 10-20 kids satisfy your passion for proportion between dinners and vodka shots out there in the USA?

You can also do without the constant insinuation about how *happy* people like myself would be if Israel should say, level a neighborhood or two in Gaza. All I want is to make the Qassams stop. Relax, please. I harbor no sentiments of retaliation or revenge per se.

Personally I think it will work, as Mubarak has shown us and king Hussein, not to mention Assad the father. All 3 very well acquainted with what works and what doesn't. They didn't toy around and didn't dilly-dally so much before mass shooting into crowds. Worked like magic.

This government isn't incompetent (for lack of better candidates I intend to vote for them again), it's simply castrated: scared of making mistakes. Their operation will eventually work. It has in the past, as opposed to what you say. It only takes longer.

So what you basically suggest is... well, doing nothing. This doesn't work, and that doesn't work, and the other won't work either. So we sit around and let the rockets fall and pray to the gods they don't kill too many. Meanwhile you keep enjoying your country club facilities? Remote controlling and morally reprimanding Israel's actions? Setting the right, oh and wrong too, proportions just before you go off to yet another theater show?

The naked and uncouth truth is that one HAS to play by the enemy's rules.

No other rules are effective in the long run.

I'm sure we will in the end, and that will give us a decade or two of quiet here.

Not more, but I'll take it with both hands.

And finally, let me just whisper to you scott, that you are not morally superior to those people on The Spine as my self. Morally, I would at least refrain from preaching morality to people who are trying to survive in a jungle half the globe away from where I am.

That's also morality of sorts.

scott -- we went back and forth on all these questions a year ago, I seem to remember...?? Still seems to me that Spine posters are just addressing the realities -- as is Israel in taking the actions it must take to protect itself. Yes, those actions result in deaths of non-combatants, children and adults. (And by the way, numbers I've seen aren't as one-sided as those you cite -- depends on definitions of who is a civilian, who's a fighter, and that's, if you'll excuse the expression, a minefield I don't want to get into here, aside from asking you if a 14-year-old, say, with a bomb belt is a kid or a terrorist. And of course Hamas et.al define any Israeli as a non-civilian, just because they dare to live where they live).....

True, people killed by accident are just as dead as those killed deliberately. But again and again, I don't see it as useful to say that Israel should just accept that Hamas et.al. are not going to change "because it would result in their immediate extinction." Their immediate extinction, frankly, would go a long way to at least sort of solving the conflict, or at least tamping it down a bit for awhile...

And again, much of the frustration here, including, perhaps, that of r-ennis(am not speaking for her/him) stems from the constant focus on Israel's self-defense actions...world-wide criticism of the IRA, ETA,  the list goes on forever, is never as intense or as long-lasting as that directed against Israel...even the outrage against the Burmese junta has all but disappeared from mainstream punditry and NGO attention....You and I both know that Israel has the power to wipe out its enemies, yet it takes only band-aid measures. Any other state in a similar situation would likely -- and we know that many have -- go that route. So, again, why the status of "palestinians" as the world's chosen, beloved, victims -- and why is the country being attacked seen as the aggressor, the mean, mean occupier? I think it has a lot to do with antisemitism, and I'm damn sick and tired of it, even as I accept that this particular hatred isn't ever going away...

Jackson:  Small question.  Wouldn't you say that the Nazis were irredentist in the sense that they based their whole ideology on the myth of the Northern European "Aryan."  Complete with its own fake mythological history.  Wouldn't you say its nationalistic in that anyone deemed non-Aryan, i.e. Jewish, a "mud person," etc. was considered subhuman, which made their murders palatable to the Germans?  Don't forget too that the Nazis were going to extend their extermination spree to the Slavs--that was stage two of their plan.

Scott:  So what exactly are you getting at?  That the Palestinian mortaring is a mere tool of harrassment?  And therefore should be shrugged off?  

That terrorism is okay because it ultimately gets you what you want?  And how exactly do you distinguish terrorism from, say, guerilla warfare?  Because, duh, the Irgun and Lehi didn't target civilians.  Their day job did not include indisciminately mortaring Palestinian villages.  Locked into their credo was not that oh-so-lovely phrase, "We will push the Palestinians into the sea."  They did not sit around a campfire and say, "Gee, let's go after their civilians.  That oughta show them."   I'm looking for your condemnation, but I can't find it anywhere. Someone get me a flashlight.  

So why is it that when you post on Israel you never once condemn Palestinian tactics.  You have never once shown an iota of rachmones for the Israelis, unless its preceded by a  cover-my-ass "To be sure . . . "  

Finally, to expand on LisaH's point, there is no immediate solution.  Israel's being shelled by a bunch of animals who hide among civilians and who have destroyed anything good that the Israelis left behind. They WILL NOT BE ENGAGED.  They aren't looking for peace, only Israel's destruction.

Most important, if Israel had any way out that could guarantee its safety safety, do you honestly think they wouldn't have taken that path by now?  Do you think they enjoy this state of constant warfare?   Maybe you could set up a summit in Maine and moderate.  

LISAH, wanna start up a company with me?

You and I together are perfect!

PERFEKTO!

yes, yes, babigail....absolutely....!!!!!!

and to mollysimon  --- yes!!!!!!

"one has to play by one's enemy's rules"

Well, yes and no. Or maybe, there are some rules that each side can agree to and others that the parties do not agree to. Every long-running conflict has to evolve some rules in order for it to avoid devouring both sides. There were all sorts of tacit boundaries (and many explicit ones, too) that regulated and contained our 42-year hot-and-cold war with the Soviets. Rules of engagement, protocols for notifying each other, bright lines that were not to be crossed-- and yet we poured trillions of dollars and spilled oceans of blood, both proxies' and our own, in violent pursuit of each other around the globe.

I'd be very surprised if the IDF's general staff and Hamas's gruppenfuehrers have not devised similar rules to set the outer boundaries of their conflict. My point is that breaking those rules, or inventing one's own rules if you like, is not sufficient to _win_ such a conflict because you only screw yourself in the end. That's why each side agreed to the rules in the first place. So if you want to win, you have to either acquire an overpowering advantage that OtherSide cannot match, or else figure out a series of jujitsu maneuvers that transform OtherSide's advantages into grave vulnerabilities.

Israel already has all the overpowering advantages that it could possibly attain, and that hasn't been enough to vanquish the Hamas hydra. So that leaves jujitsu. Again, the only way out here that I can see is to leverage Jordan and the Saudis. Jordan needs to take over the WB, and the Sauds need to give a green light to crushing Hamas in Gaza and some kind of pacification and occupation of Gaza by an Arab force, or maybe an EU-UN-Arab force.

LISAH-- "yes, yes, yes!!!!"

This is sounding more like Molly Bloom than Molly Simon. Ladies, control yourselves.

The reason worldwide criticism of Israel is intense and long lasting is that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories has been intense and longlasting and its subjugation of the Palestinian people has been inense and longlasting. The occipation has led to a situation where 5% of the Israeli population are indictable war criminals. It is incumbent on moral people everywhere to condemn Israel's immoral, illegal and reprehensible action towards the Palestinan people - and it will remain uncumbent on us as long as Israel continues its vile and evil behavior.

Israel pretends to exist among the comity of nations but it departed that status when it deliberately chose to commit war crimes on the Palestinian people. An important reason why Isrel has remained in this state of moral and legal disgace is that the United States has appeased that fall, and individuals like r-ennis have encouraged it. A few months ago we had babigail declaring she would rather everyone in the entire world be killed than a single drop of Jewish blood flow - even as her nation caused rivers of Palestinian blood flow.

If you do not like Israel to be criticized for perpetuating its vile and evil actions you should step back into the real world and stop listening to the siren voices of evil that unfortunately permeates much of the defence of Israel we hear in this magazine and others like it. And there remain far too many people who continue to choose moral depravity over moral grace, far too many of whom Shakespeare could still ask:

Good uncle, hide such malice;

with such holiness, can you do it.

mack - get thee to an accountancy. Your moral ledger's seriously out of balance.

tep...nothing wrong with being in a comfort zone. Guys (whaddya mean ladies??? I ain't no lady) welcome too....

Agree with a little of your latest post -- but "rules of engagement" require agreement of both parties, and it's totally clear that that Hamas et.al. aren't interested in agreement. They say it constantly. And Israel's "overpowering advantage???" Sure it's there, but as I said, Israel is too civilized to use it, So what good is it? And Saudi Arabia and Jordan are too wrapped up in their own problems with their own  extremists to be useful. So what's the point of even mentioning them? One can question, by the way, Stalin's sanity -- but if the US/West and the Soviet Union, both relatively (sort of) reasonable global actors, couldn't resolve things, how can the Israel/"palestinian" conflict be managed?

By the way, if, say, Saudi Arabia, "crushed" Hamas, do you think the world would emit even a peep?

to the ndmackenzie thing: thanks for once again proving the point abvout antisemitism. Do goose step on.

LISAH -

The most prevalent and most pernicious form of anti-Semitism in existence today is the Zionist anti-Semitism which excuses the Israeli subjugation of the Palestinian people BECAUSE Israel is a Jewish state.  I can think of nothing more inimicable to the Jewish diaspora than associating it with the actions of an anomic Israel. This blog is the house blog of Zionist anti-Semitism just as this magazine is the house magazine of this vile ideology.

In my willingness to condemn the evil Israel visits on the Palestinian people I am a far better friend to Israel and the Jewish diaspora than you and your fellow travellers will ever be. Yours is the voice of a moral failure that we should all be obliged to condemn.

Teplukhin:  you keep repeating your idea of "moderate Arabs", such as Jordan and S.Arabia,  waiting to be engaged by Israel as a counterweight to Hamas & Hezbollah.  I asked you for any evidence of such a possibility - you didn't answer.  

Well, Jordan is relatively moderate, and it has recognized Israel and probably cooperates with it on some issues behind the scenes.  But it's also weak and poor, the king is mostly concerned with self-preservation, its population is largely anti-Israel, so don't expect Jordanians to make any dramatic move towards peace-keeping on the W.Bank.  

The Saudis, on the other hand, is a totally different matter.  The land of huge oil wealth, Wahabi extremism, support for Hamas, non-recognition of Israel, scores of suicide bombers sent to Iraq, etc.

When you say, "Jordan needs to take over the WB, and the Sauds need to give a green light to crushing Hamas in Gaza " - I must ask you, again, what is it in either country's behavior that makes you think this way?  

Every evidence I've seen points to exactly the opposite you think they need to do.  Jordan, eg, doesn't want another few millions of  troublemaking Palestinians;  the Saudis' official hatred of Israel far outweighs any other considerations;  just very recently, and to a great displeasure of the State Dept, they sponsored  a "unity" deal between Hamas and Fatah.

So?

"if, say, Saudi Arabia, "crushed" Hamas, do you think the world would emit even a peep?"

You're hip to my tricks. Use proxies.  

sabaka - this is where the US needs to twist some arms. Maybe I'm naive but I'm assuming we still have enormous leverage over the House of Saud and the Hashemites. Especially now that Iran is rising.

Over at The American Prospect, Gershom Gorenberg asks "What Does It Mean To Be the Pro-Israel Candidate?"  His answer:

-- Start here: Being pro-Israel does not require backing the most bellicose possible Israeli position, anymore than being "pro-American" requires backing the war in Iraq. To be "pro" means to support, to want a country to survive and flourish. Supporting an ill-considered war (Iraq, Lebanon) is like encouraging a friend to leap into a barroom brawl: a poor form of friendship.

-- To be pro-Israel certainly doesn't mean basing foreign policy on the alleged conflict of civilizations; the whole West locked in combat with the Islamic world. The perception that the United States is at war with Islam leaves Israel dangerously exposed on the front lines. It is in Israel's interest to get along at least tolerably with as many of its Muslim neighbors as possible.

-- Most critically, support for Israel does not mean support for West Bank settlement, for the Whole Land of Israel, for endless occupation. The sane, mainstream Zionist vision was and is of a democratic state with a Jewish majority, with full rights for all citizens, a country living at peace with its neighbors. (That's what the country's declaration of independence says.) Rule over the disenfranchised Palestinians of the West Bank undermines democracy. Every additional settler makes withdrawal more difficult.

www.prospect.org/.../articles

The New Republic is not a pro-Israeli magazine.

"You're hip to my tricks. Use proxies."

Can you arrange that? Please......??????

Another remark, scott: Rabin was neither in the Irgun nor in Leh"i. He was in the Haganah, with the "good guys".

Tep, about Jordan and the West Bank. Not a chance Jordan will ever even consider this. The king has enough trouble keeping his "own" Palestinian majority in check.

This can be a futuristic prospect, when and if the kingdom is ever toppled. But Israel will protect Jordan from any such eventuality in the foreseeable future. Israel rescued jordan before there was peace with her, from the claws of Syria.

She will be even more steadfast in doing so vs. the Pals.

LISAH - yes, it is the arabs who can and must crush Hamas, not Israel.

Re the importance of proxies, my point is that had we and the Soviets not been able to carry out our 42-year struggle with proxy nations and movements, we'd have started WWIII. This is the game Iran is playing, btw. We and the Israelis need to figure out how to counter with our own proxies.

It seems to me that the Saudis in particular need to be coaxed/bullied/enticed into helping shut down Hamas. I'd think a regional Sunni front against Iran and its proxies would be a good start toward that end.

Teplukhin:

Does the US really have a great leverage with the Saudis and other Arabs?  If so, I'd really like to see any evidence of it.  I know what the US has done, and is doing, for them. It saved Saudis' and Kuweiit's butts from Saddam; it gives Egypt 2 bln annually, hundreds of mlns to Jordan and Palestinians, it keeps troops, planes and ships in the area so that the Gulf Arabs could keep pocketing their petro megabucks and buy chunks of US financial giants - all that is clear.

But what do we get in return? A special deal on oil? Help with our little Iraqi project?  General moderation and outpouring of friendliness from the fabled Arab street?  Positive image from the state-controlled Arab mass media?

I also imagine that our presumed  leverage with the Arabs was much bigger in the 90s; I suppose both Bush the Elder and esp. Clinton used it to the max to get Arab support for the I-P peace deal.  I just don't recall any evidence of that support.  Do you?

yes, tep -- but as several people above noted, these efforts aren't likely to work for a variety of tactical and other reasons....and how is a US-Israeli effort to do this in any way comparable to US-USSR use of proxies?

This just in:  Syria and Pakistan are really concerned about human rights abuses by Israel - no kidding.  And 20 other countries joined.

UNHRC calls emergency talks on Israel

Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 18, 2008

The UN Human Rights Council will hold an emergency meeting next week to examine whether Israel is committing abuses in the Palestinian territories, officials said Friday.

The special session of the 47-member council was called after a petition was submitted by Syria and Pakistan, on behalf of Arab and Islamic countries, according to a UN memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The move, which was supported by 20 other countries, came as Israel blocked vital supplies from entering the Gaza Strip and launched air strikes against Hamas positions and other institutions, killing one operative and two civilians.

Palestinian Kassam rockets continued to be fired into southern Israel, including one that damaged a day care center Friday.

...

babigail: Quite right: it was Yitzhak Shamir who was one of the leaders of Lehi. I was writing too fast.

Beyond that...

(1) I'm not insinuating that there are posters on The Spine who would have said they'd be happy to see Gaza carpet-bombed and Muslims slaughtered: I'm telling you that straight out. That's significantly beyond even Peretz's anonymisation of Gazans as 'rabid'. Your opinions I had no idea about before this. On the other hand, what exactly is "They didn't toy around and didn't dilly-dally so much before mass shooting into crowds. Worked like magic" supposed to imply? Shooting into crowds? What's that going to do?

(2) As for the issue of proportionality... you may dislike the idea, but in one form or another the state of Israel recognises it as a policy, precisely because it is not the same as Hamas. What's the alternative... just go out and find a crowd to shoot into, just to demonstrate some dreadfulness?

(3) You can, if you like, dispute the chronology of Qassam launches, and claim that they weren't being launched from Gaza during three years of Israeli occupation of the place - a period when, theoretically, Israel should have been best positioned to control such launches, having had uninterrupted control over the area for more than 30 years. Deny the importance of range extensions in those systems (which drastically increase the area that they can be fired from) and the increase in their ability to be stored. Do so if you want. However, that doesn't change the reality of the matter: Israel has not been able to suppress Qassam fire now, and was not able to do so when occupying Gaza the last time. Under those circumstances, why would one expect that a military solution will work this time? It may well decrease the frequency of launches, but the effects on places like Sderot are not tightly tied to the frequency of the launches anyway.

(4) And babigail, let me whisper something back: I've never claimed to be morally superior to anyone. I do work in areas, though, where I see the aftereffects of warfare pretty frequently, among people who are often dehumanised and seen as anonymous ciphers in the West. So when self-satisfied fools like Martin Peretz want to dismiss other people as 'rabid' , and say that their lives are cheaper than those who oppose them, I think it's no bad thing to remind folks of the human toll among those 'rabid' populations, even the toll of innocents.

I have a lot of respect for an Israel that maintains its humanity even in the face of attacks against it... far less for people whose chief ambition (expressed electronically and anonymously, of course) seems to be emulating the tactics of the groups who oppose it.

mollysimon: Qassam rockets are precisely harassment weapons. There is no 'mere' about that: their primary effect is the terror that they instill in the civilian populations that are targetted. Hamas knows that they don't have to reduce Sderot to rubble: they get their effects primarily by making life hell for the people who live there. The problem for the Israeli military is that such weapons do not have to be successfully fired that often to have that effect of instilling terror.... and that such weapons are extremely difficult to find and suppress, especially as their ranges get longer.

And that's the problem. It's a little like the thread a couple of weeks ago on Darfur... everyone beats their chests and talks about how it's all the UN's fault, just need to intervene militarily and sort things out blah blah blah. Then, when I describe the barriers to _actually doing_ what people on the thread were talking about, to generating a military intervention in Darfur against Sudanese resistance, all of a sudden things get real quiet. Nobody posts, and everyone goes away to find something out to fulminate about. Same problem here: I don't think that it's possible to eliminate Qassam launches militarily... maybe by taking babigail's advice and emulating Assad in Hama, but is Israel actually going to do that?

As for Lehi and Irgun... well, you've got quite a positive evaluation of their activities. Haganah and the Jewish Agency had quite a different evaluation after Deir Yassin, for example. And as for my condemnation of Palestinian terrorism, you need to look at the archives of The Spine for that.

LISAH: In part, this persists simply because of what Israel is. Note that quote of Barak's that I mentioned before: the issue persists because Israel is, at its best, a democracy that does not take the path that its enemies take, and holds itself and is held to a higher standard by others because of that. It has not emulated Assad at Hama when dealing with Gaza, for example, and I hope and expect that it will not in future. (There's also the problem, of course, that destroying Gaza might well not stop the rockets either...)

At the same time, the state of Israel has done some things in the area that I (and a lot of other people) think are unjust: it is not always the attacked in the region, and it _has_ occupied territory in the West Bank and, latterly, Gaza that has belonged to others. And so the conflict persists, and people pay attention to it. I don't see any reason that there has to be exact equivalence in attention paid to such situations in different parts of the world, in some kind of economy of outrage.

scott, first let's get one thing right out of the way: generalizations and anonymizations. There's no effective way of talking or lecturing without generalizing, we all do it all the time, and this includes you. Gaza IS ruled by a bunch of rabid fundamentalists, and they are supported by a vast majority of the populace. So let's just say that in any generalization and anonymization there's a built-in reognition of the excluded individuals or groups (not all Germans supported Hitler, only 90% or so). There's no point in repeating all these reservations and exception in every sentence. Hence the rabid Gazans is fine, and we all understand that some Gazans are not rabid.

Shooting into crowds will achieve everything we want to achieve, but it's not an option of course. Not an option for an enlightened country like Israel, of course. Almost the automatic choice of every Arab ruler when faced with substantial opposition, or merely thinks he is. Terrible. But does the trick. What do you know, it even paved the way for Hamas to the takeover of Gaza. I'm saying that the response should be in the line of what Hamas is doing to us. I can't see why not. They do not have an exclusive handle on shooting rockets into populated areas. If that's what they're doing, they should be able to deal with a reciprocal response.

Unless "Israel is expected to behave differently". Which explains why we haven't managed to put an end to this absurdity.

I don't want Israel to be expected to behave differently, OK?

Qassams were launched before Israel disengaged. not so many but still. The big difference is that Hamas wasn't the landlord at the time. Israel fought Hamas until the latter begged for a ceasefire. Right after that cursed cripple was eliminated, if you remember. It worked then, and it will work again. As I said, it only takes longer this way.

They are rabid, in accordance with the limitations cited above, and their lives ARE cheaper than ours. Why? Coz that's the essence of any war. That's the bottom line. Our lives are worth more than yours, that's why we kill you. In other words, scott, let's drop the sanctimoniousness. Or put more bluntly, cut the crap.

Mr. Peretz is not a fool, and certainly not a bigger one than you. The fact that you name him a fool doesn't make him one, and sure doesn't get you off the very same hook.

Plus, you sure are posing as morally superior. Let me confess that there's nothing I despise more than self-proclaimed moral superiority.

I forgot.

Dayan, whom I had never liked, once uttered a good line:

This conflict will go one until the Palestinians (I think he said Arabs back then) will start loving their own children more than they hate us.

Truer words were never said.

About shooting ruthlessly, let's look at some numbers.

Israel has, in her moderate and targeted and surgical way, killed about 1000 Palestinians since the disengagement. the majority of which were Hamas terrorists, and the rest so-called innocent bystanders  caught in the line of fire.

Hamas, in its ruthless, barbaric, brutal way killed not quite 100 people, and the whole show was over and done with in a few days.

So, there are your two approaches, scott. What do you say, which is more effective, enlightened, humane?

This is how you put an end to problems in this neighborhood, scott ma boy.

These are the steps of the dance. If you don't understand it, as Israel doesn't, everything hurts more.

And if you complain that Israel is not humane enough, well... then you are a bigger fool than I imagined, and that's pretty big.

"Palestinian Kassam rockets continued to be fired into southern Israel, including one that damaged a day care center Friday."  Kassam rockets are tools of harassment?  When you read the preceding sentence, where is your response, your qualification?   When it comes to Palestinian terrorism, you hav