1.) Of course not.
2.) Of course.
3.) I'd wonder why Bush was arresting all the Sikhs and Hindus...

A friend of mine noted that if Canada attacked Detroit, we'd invade Venezuela.

The jews are too stubborn to ever leave - to do so would admit defeat and as I heard a number of my jewish freinds put it "comprimise their faith in god"

The palistinians are too stupid to see their situation clearly - a situation eveyone is more than happy to exploit

And the mulsim are also to wrapped up in their faith to see clearly.

Since neither side will give way, and Isreal shouldnt I say stop with the retaliotory 'surgical' strikes and bomb them until every structure is rubble

Israel (or any other country) has the right to defend itself, but the response should be proportional to the attack.

Also, no where in the post is mentioned how Israel is choking off fuel, food, and medicine to Gaza with an embargo. People are smuggling goats via tunnels.

There's enough blame to go around for everyone that you don't have to make it like a white-hat, black-hat Western.

dm:

Israel (or any other country) has the right to defend itself, but the response should be proportional to the attack.

Right. Israel should immediately begin launching rockets into randomly selected civilian areas. About 6,464 should do.

Amy - your lack of understanding of the dynamic leading to the invasion of Iraq doesn't make it unjust or unwise.

And if Venezuela was bankrolling the Canadians, you're damn right we'd attack Venezuela - after leaving Canada a smoking cinder. If we were smart, we wouldn't get NATO or the UN involved either.

And before Lujlp goes off on an incoherent tear - I know that Iraq didn't bankroll the 19 Saudi hijackers. I'm not a retard. The fact of the matter, however, is that terrorism, like oil, is fungible. Money spent by Iraq financing Palestinian attacks on Israel frees up money in Iran and Saudi Arabia to be spent attacking the United States.

DM: "Israel (or any other country) has the right to defend itself, but the response should be proportional to the attack."

Yeah, right. Brian already said what I thought. Presumably you also think Israelis should suicide bomb some Palestinian buses, or declare that Palestinians are to be pushed into the sea?

How about Hamas being proportionate? They could donate to charity proportionately to the amount that Palestinians receive from Israel and the US. Unfortunately they would not be able to murder any Jews, but hey, you can't have everything.

So why do you think "the response should be proportional to the attack?" Should your police only send in the same number of officers, armed in the same way as the gang they are trying to arrest? I'd say that was pretty much guaranteed to maximize casualties and drag out the war. Still, it *would* be proportionate, so that's OK. Roughly the same number of police and gangsters would be killed or injured. I look forward to seeing the police vs hoodlum knife fights on TV.

Seriously, DM, don't just repeat what you hear others say. Many people have died so that you have the right to think for yourself. Put some effort into your thinking.

Amy -
Have you seen the news from Europe - how pro-Palestinian thugs are going into Jewish neighborhoods?

That's what the last 2 thousand years have been like for Jews.

Israel was founded for a reason.

Remember?

>> think Israel should get out of the Middle East and do as Ken Layne suggests, and buy and relocate to a chunk of Baja.

You want we should give up 2,500 years of tradition for Tommy Bahama?

Eric-

"You want we should give up 2,500 years of tradition for Tommy Bahama?"

You have this arse over tits. You don't give up 2 500 years of tradition. You get to keep that and take it with you. What you give up is being trapped in a *future* that repeats endlessly the pain and suffering of the last 2 500 years.

Psychotherapists are forever telling people to "let go" of the past and "move on." The same applies to the institutionalized insanity that is tradition-bound religion - whether it's Judaism or anything else.

However, a relocation to Baja or the Australian Outback or the Gobi Desert or Mars is not going to happen. It's just an idle thought experiment. But what it reveals about the religious mindset is depressing.

dm, you are a war crime. Please turn yourself into the authorities in the Hague.

This whole idea of a "Proportional Response" is the latest Radical Left talking point. It might sit well with people with IQs less than 50 but for those of us who actually have the ability to think, it is such a canard.

I hope that someone makes a video showing what the Allied Invasion of Europe would have been like if they had engaged in a Proportional Response. Sneak Preview: War would go FOREVER and many more millions of people would have been killed.

So once again 'dm', you are guilty of a war crime, at least in your own thoughts. Go to Jail immediately and no, you do not get to collect the $200.

You want to take suffering away from the Jews? What will they talk about?

"Israel (or any other country) has the right to defend itself, but the response should be proportional to the attack."

Like Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Steamer, I'm not sure where you're coming from with that statement but those who insist upon a Proportional Response often also say that the U.S. had no right to drop those nuclear bombs. In other words, it was perfectly fine to give up the lives of millions of American soldiers. I vehemently disagree!

Indeed, war is a horrible, horrible thing but the alternative is often a neverending series of skirmishes and minor attacks. Is 10/20/50+ years of low-level battles REALLY better than a much shorter, more violent all out war?

I don't agree with Proportional Response either. I was drawing a parallel between the Israeli response to Hamas and the American response to Japan. If you start a war with a country having superior firepower, don't complain when they use it to blow you out of the water.

Steamer, your early comment was somewhat ambiguous (we all know how unclear written communication can be at times).

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

While I can't speak for 'dm' directly, I have heard his ilk before. In fact, this past summer, when I was visiting Seattle, I heard a discussion about Hiroshima & Nagasaki on an American talk radio program. There were two female "peace activists" who must have graduated from the Howard Zinn school of Rewriting History to Suit Your Own Radical Left Worldview. These two women, both under 30 years of age, asserted with great authority that the Japanese people had given up and if American soldiers had stepped onto Japanese soil, there would have been "no resistance".

Really? How precisely do they know this?! How is it that their views are diametrically opposed to credible historians and military officers? Yet the Sheeple eat this stuff up like manna from heaven. Though most of them are atheists and don't believe in heaven, but that's an entirely separate issue!

I've always found that if you investigate a little more deeply into the views of Radical Leftists that you almost always find a deep-seated HATRED (not dislike, but actual hatred) for Jews. It's very peculiar.

Steamer: "If you start a war with a country having superior firepower, don't complain when they use it to blow you out of the water."

Actually, I don't think Hamas are making this complaint. It's being made by others on their behalf. Hamas is busy making victims and photo opportunities to show how oppressed they are.

I could be wrong on this. Does anyone have a quote from Hamas objecting to a disproportionate response?

Norman, interesting comment & question. I'm also most curious to learn precisely how many of the dead Palestinians were soldiers, like these?

I assume that PRAVDA-I (Proportional Response Advocates Voicing Dismay Against Israel) believe that if 100 Palestinian soldiers are killed then 100 Israeli soldiers must be killed too?!

Sorry to do this Robert W, but I ran across this this morning:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7809371.stm

The first casualty of war is always the truth. I thought it was BS because Grad missiles are much larger than in the video. (I'm all for destroying Hamas, btw.)

ps- Grads are rockets.

That's what the last 2 thousand years have been like for Jews.
- Ben-David

You know what Ben, so fucking what. I'm tired of jews proclaiming how they suffer prejudice and violence at the hands of others. They deserve it, no in my opinion mind you, but in gods.

The god, thru the bible, said they would suffer and suffer and suffer until the end of days. And given that most persecuted jews goto temple they must have bothered to read the torah at least once.

Lets seriously examine god for a moment.

He allows a snake to tempt Adam and Eve so they can get thrown out of the garden, cant tell me that wasnt an inside job - how else could a corrupting influence get past an all powerful being.

Now lets look at the history of Ireal according to the bible. God intentionally mad abrams wife barren, he also let abram whore her out but hats another story, then somewhere around 100 her let her have a kid and commands abram to kill his only son - only at the last minute to say 'just kiddinng'

Then we have the children of Issac, Esau who sold his birthright to Jacob, but Jacob had to trick his father to get it. Agani we see an all powerful being using subtefuge and lies to acomplish his purpose. If he wanted Jacob to get the blessing why didnt he simply command Issac to do so?

The we see joseph sold into slavery by his brothers, all part of ome convoluted plot to put joseph in a position of power to save up Eygpts grain so he can sell it to his familly durring a famine that the lord caused.

Ever wonder how my people died of starvation in that 7yr period all so the familly of Isreal could survive, move to Eygpt and eventually become slaves? WOuldnt it have been simpler for their familly to discover a half a dozen gold veins?

But no millions had to die because, again, this all powerful god couldnt simply tell anyone what to do.

The history of judaism is one of suffering - it has been since their inception and according to the word of god will be until the 'messiah' appears.

So please forgive me if I cant be bothered to care about the foreordained, god endorsed suffering of a group of people who masochistically wallow in said suffering

If you can't be bothered to care about the religion, don't comment on it, lujlp.

"I think Israel should get out of the Middle East and do as Ken Layne suggests, and buy and relocate to a chunk of Baja."

Baja is already taken. It is part of the Mexican Republic. Regrettably, the Mexican Republic does not permit foreigners to purchase land, and imposes strict limitations upon immigrants, even those who naturalize. Mexico is making progress, but it is still a fairly il-liberal society.

I have a better suggestion. Let them come here. There are already 6.5 million Jews living in the United States - something like 46 or 48 percent of the world Jewish population; 50% of all world Jews already speak English.

In Baja, they would find themselves contending with an illiberal, xenophobic and corrupt regime - one struggling to progress and that has made progress, to be sure -- but nonetheless, one that remains a far cry from the advanced, stable democratic state they are accustomed to. Here, however, they would find a land whose people have values that are very compatible with their own. America is fertile ground where they would be accepted and thrive - just as the 6.5 million Jews already here have. And we would benefit immensely as well from the influx of a large number of tough, enterprising, educated, skilled, FREE men and women.

All that said, Israel should NOT pull up stakes and leave. They do not have to. Their nation has a right to exist. Asking them to decamp to Baja or anywhere else smacks of the "duty to retreat" that features at common and statute law in most states - in other words, if someone menaces you, YOU (the victim) are required to retreat (read - to flee) if it is reasonably safe to do so. While I appreciate the merits of this bit of public policy in so far as that it promotes resolution of conflicts at the lowest level and reduces the likelihood of injury -- that is to say, that on a certain level it promotes public order -- the policy nonetheless grates upon me: First, because it destroys the dignity of the innocent by compelling them, by force of law, to submit to the abuse of brutes; second, because it saps the enterprising spirit of free men and women by compelling them to look to the state as their sole source of relief even if they have the physical means of self-help at hand; and finally, it grates upon me because, perniciously, it can undermine the very goal it seeks to promote -- public order -- by encouraging thugs to act out while discouraging innocent people from resisting the thugs.

Even this troublesome "duty to retreat", however, does not apply to Israel, because the duty to retreat NEVER requires one to retreat from ones own home, and frequently does not require one to retreat from ones place of business. Thus, even if this common law principle were extended by analogy to Israel, it would create no duty of any kind on the part of any Israel to decamp out of the Middle East. Individual Israelis are free to do as the like -- they can save their lives and flee or not; Hamas can do as it likes - the killing can stop tomorrow if they lay down their arms and make peace. But Israel has NO duty to retreat to Baja - doing so would only embolden thugs that are trying to push them out. Their avarice will not be quenched by the flight of today's enemy. They will find other foes to attack tomorrow.

Some of you grossly misunderstand the concept of proportionality. "Proportionality" does not mean limiting oneself to inflicting damage upon your foe at the same level as they inflict upon you - it does not imply or require a tit-for-tat response. What proportionality DOES require is that the amount of military force applied be proportional in scope and appropriate in nature to the political or military objective that you are seeking to accomplish.

Thus, whether Israel's response to the Gaza rockets is proportional is not to be measured by how many rockets Hamas has fired at Israel, but rather is to be measured by what types of actions and at what level of intensity are required to achieve Israel's strategic and political goals, which undoubtedly include halting the attacks on their civilian population.

The concept of proportionality is a separate question altogether from the threshold question of whether use of force is justified. Even use of proportional force is wrong if your strategic or policy objective is inappropriate - though exercise of restraint would certainly serve as a mitigating factor. Just for the record, I believe that Israel IS justified.

A couple of posters above have made an excellent observation - that interpreting "proportionality" as limiting the combatants to only a tit-for-tat type of response may be pernicious in its effect in having the unintended effect of dragging out the conflict for an unnaturally long period of time.

Whats the matter farker dont like me ridiculing your god?

My great-grandparents had the sense to leave the crumbling Ottoman Empire. My parents had the sense to leave Latin America. Ahh thank goodness for ancestors that had some sense and paid only paid minimal lip service to their respective customs and religions.

I say bomb level the strutures surrounding Isreal with a strip twice as long as the current range of what ever weapons hamas is using and seed the gorund with millions of land mines

I say bomb level the strutures surrounding Isreal with a strip twice as long as the current range of what ever weapons hamas is using and seed the gorund with millions of land mines

In other words, genocide. (if you knew the geometry and geography involved, you'd know that this involves wiping out most of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and large swathes of Syria and Lebanon)

I knew we would eventually get to this point, where people who consider themselves "moral" would suggest, even advocate for genocide in the middle east.

I'm rather surprised to see it here though.

I'd rather have Israel as a neighbor than Palestine.

Where did I suggest killing an entire culture?

By all means put out a press release stating than on a specific date the bombing will start, and give all of those smart enough to leave the option

"But, do you think there's any hope this battle will ever end?"

Yes, eventually, simply because everything ends in its own good time. For example, the internecine warfare between European settlers and their descendents on one hand, and the native Americans on the other, finally ended. It took a couple of hundred years, the thorough defeat of one of the contending parties, and a whole lot of suffering all around, to be sure, but it did end. The Arab-Israeli situation will end, also, in its own good time, when the conflict has run its course.

Now, granted, this process of playing itself out will likely take a very, very long time, with a lot of suffering in the interim.

However, that hardly means that the Jews should depart the Middle East to hasten such an end, for a number of reasons. First, nasty as the current conflict is, I think it strongly likely that were the State of Israel to physically leave, the lives of most Israels would likely be made much worse, at least in the short run, being turned upside down in the process of transition. What's more, there is absolutely no guaranty that Israel would be able to reconstitute what they have achieved in Israel at a new location, and even if they could, that such would be accomplished in a reasonable or acceptable time frame. Frankly, I think most Israelis - including Jews, Druze, and Israeli Arabs - have rather good and decent lives, even in the face of the ongoing conflict.

Now, one might argue that the Palestinians would be better off if Israel decamped. Well, maybe - at least the current interminable war between themselves and Israel would end. Even so, the Palestinians would still find themselves ruled by the same goons who rule them today. These goons would be no more competent nor less thuggish. They would not hesitate to apply the same brutality against fellow Palestinian opponents as applied against Israel (remember the Hamas coup-de-tat not long ago?). The Palestinians would be free from the danger posed by the IDF, but they would still be burdened with brutality and poverty dished out by their own leaders. What's more, they would not have the benefit of the jobs created by the existence of Israel itself.

Finally, absent the Jewish foe in their midst, jihadists in Hamas and their ilk might be tempted to go shopping for other targets - non-Muslims in the Middle East, western interests, etc.

So, it is by no means a sure thing that the departure of Israel from the Middle East would bring a net benefit to anybody - Israeli or Arab.