Israel’s apologists look uncomfortable on TV as they repeat their assigned talking points. It’s not easy to square hundreds killed on one side and barely a dozen on the other. Their eyes flicker and dart to the exits when asked about a cease fire. “Yes, but their rockets are still coming…” they stammer. “But they’re not hitting anything!” the shapely, young interviewer points out.

It’s clear that Israel is steadily losing support. Someone once said that whenever the Israeli military gets itself involved in something, it becomes acutely aware of two clocks that start simultaneously. One marks the time it will take to achieve the objective; the other marks the time it takes for world opinion to reach critical mass.

The time it takes for me to write this opinion is infinite. It does not really matter whether or not it comes to post. The time for Hamas to lob duds through the rooftops of empty school buildings is similarly infinite. It matters only if and when Israel reacts. Israel might let it go on for quite some time; until goaded into action by internal political concerns (elections), as some suspect is the case this time around.

All this means is that time is relative to what matters. Israel must be clear about what it is that it wants to happen. Unencumbered, by the constraints of substance and time, only events are immediate - and, hence, timeless - to the parties involved, much as two friends talking on the telephone - one in New York, the other in San Francisco - though each lives in his or her own time (zone), three hours apart.

Rocketboom visits the border of Israel and Palestine for a report on border control: http://tinyurl.com/9e9kaz

The following is the full text of the comments by Hamas representative Fathi Hamad: “For the Palestinian people death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly [Palestinians] created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine, as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: We desire death as you desire life.”

This is a spokesperson for Hamas, the elected government of the de facto state of Gaza. They call for the destruction of their neighbor state of Israel. That is a war crime in contravention to the UN Charter. They intentionally lob their missiles at civilian targets. That is a war crime. They intentionally hide themselves and their weapons among their own civilians and mosques and hospitals. That is a war crime. Hamas are nothing but a gang of war criminals obsessed with death. Give them what they desire. Rain death on them and those that support them. At some point, as General Sherman taught us, the suffering will be sufficiently great that the population will surrender and accept peace. Hasn't the past 50 years of history of this conflict demonstrated that peace is only achieved at the tip of a very pointed and active sword? How do you reason with war criminals and achieve a diplomatic solution? You cannot. Until their is capitulation, there will be no peace. The enemy uses the morality of the West and Israel as a weapon of self immolation. At some point existential survival will weigh more heavily than appearances and the death and destruction will be even greater. Deferring hard decisions only makes them harder and more painful on all parties to implement. And make no mistake, bringing peace will do harm to Israel and the West's moral authority. The question is when is that price worth paying for a sustainable peace?

Lou- Exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself- including seeing an end. If Hamas is dismantled, good riddance. But It will always be amazing to me that Israel should continue to be so conveniently blind to their own past. Israel is the G.W. Bush of countries. Flabbergasting indignation in the face of reason- but what do you expect from a religious state? or a religious man?
Plan for peace in the middle east?
A new generation of Israelis makes an apology to Palestine.
"Our parents wanted this land, and took it. Now, we are here, but we are not responsible for what they did. We have families and consider this our home. We would like to apologize for the harm they have done to you and ask your forgiveness and cooperation in living peacefully, side by side"
Start by laying down the "god given right" for a country to exist. God cares about people, not countries.
Start with an acknowledging that jews and muslims spring from branches of the same tree.

senator - "Israel is the G.W. Bush of countries" - this is probably the first statement of yours I can agree with. But whereas you see religion as a scourge, I see it as a blessing. Don't be fooled by those who willfully and consistently violate the third of the Ten Commandments which forbids taking the name of God in a vain; i.e. use His holy name in order to justify unholy acts. They are not, what you would call, "religious".

Well said Peter, but I think you know what I'm getting at- I'm speaking of things done in the name of religion, either using it to remove the blame for what is about to happen from those of us wrapped in mortal flesh and passing the buck along to a "higher power" or being fanatical yourself and under the spell of religious order. Whereas you are speaking of an ideal situation, where true spirituality doesn't take a name in vain. And I should re-phrase. I don't see religion necessarily as a scourge- I study religions in my spare time and am fascinated by creation myths, holy books, etc. But, alas, see above comment.

senator:
How selective is your self-righteous condemnation of religious extremism and hypocrisy! Don't you know -- or care -- that a few months ago, right about the time Hamas, not Israel, unilaterally abrogated the existing ceasefire, those noble Palestinian patriots of yours imposed on their countrymen in Gaza a new penal code based on sharia law? Now women -- PALESTINIAN women -- can be stoned to death by Hamas fanatics for the sexual sins of men, Palestinian hands and heads can be lopped off with reckless abandon, and Palestinian Muslims who dare to convert to Christianity can be crucified, along with the Palestinian or foreign Christians alleged to have proselytized them. Why don't you complain about this? Or is it OK with you when Arabs slaughter Arabs and Muslims slaughter Muslims? On these grounds, you probably think Saddam Hussein was an Iraqi patriot and freedom fighter.

In contrast, Israel does not visit, and never has visited, such inhuman atrocities on Israeli Arabs, or even on the Palestinian terrorists it captures and imprisons. That's why there are more than enough Hamas and Hizbollah prisoners alive in Israeli jails to become objects of international pity from the gullible and the brainwashed, not to mention the bigoted. The Israeli soldiers captured by Islamo-fascists like Hizbollah and Hamas are murdered, even though they are in uniform and even when they have been kidnapped from internationally recognized Israeli soil. Again, no righteous, wailing protests from such as you!

So, senator, why don't you move to London or someplace else in Eurabia where you can march around in solidarity with the Islamic extremists and self-hating Westerners who abound there? And as for Israel being "the George W. Bush of nations," I certainly hope so, and that the current invasion of Gaza will prove to be the surge that actually brings relative peace to the region by decisively defeating the Hamas terrorists, murderers, and enslavers who are the real oppressors of the Palestinian people. In the meantime, try this one on for size, senator -- Gaza is the Osama bin Laden of nations, and must be dealt with accordingly.

My apologies for having my timeline wrong in my last comment above. In fact, Hamas unilaterally abrogated the existing ceasefire and promulgated its sharia law tyranny only last month, rather than in November. It just seemed longer to me -- how time flies when terrorists are having their barbaric fun!

Well, I can see this discussion really is going to be about as deep as a dixie cup.
And, since I'm refusing to "choose a side" (except that of peace) those without the capacity to step back for a wider view are trying to make every player on the field wear white or black hats. Let me clue you in to the symbolism, white = good, black = bad.
And,
Because I want Peace, because I want facts on the table, because I blame both Israel and Palestine for killing their own children year after year, because I blame them both for having an unnatural tendency toward conflict, because I hope for reason to defeat fundamentalism everywhere- I have been told to go march with "Islamofascists" in "Europe" (and we all know how bad Europe is)

Tom- I only have one very direct question for you- what do you think of the following, hypothetical statement.

Plan for peace in the middle east?
A new generation of Israelis makes an apology to Palestine.
"Our parents wanted this land, and took it. Now, we are here, but we are not responsible for what they did. We have families and consider this our home. We would like to apologize for the harm they have done to you and ask your forgiveness and cooperation in living peacefully, side by side"

Now, let me presume you really, really don't like it.
Now, Why?
I'm all ears.

Senator--
the history of "Palestine" is not nearly as cut and dried as you make it sound. Let's recall that Israel was officially created by the venerable UN. Jews certainly came to the area and settled--in fact civilized the area. The Palestinians left or were removed by other moslem countries.

Your apologia script above--"my parents were mean bastards, you got screwed, I'm sorry, not leave" is naive to the extreme. Truth is people get the leadership they have--either by voting for it or not resisting it. The Palestinians are a doomed branch of the human tree. If they had foresight, by now they could be on a par with South Korea, Jordan e.g. by using the vast sums of UN money over the years to actually build something. But as a people they seem destined to implode rather than move on and make progress. I'd suggest the Palestian leadership say to Israel : "OK, its done, you win, we now build on what we have, help us, our parents should have been more welcoming to the Jews arriving between 1850 and 1950 but we preferred ancient ethnic hatred, we were jealous and envious of Jewish industriousness, you surpassed us in all respects, we are a withering branch of the evolutionary tree. Pls help us and bring you US big brother along." The US and the world would have turned gaza and WB into a wonderland.

Senator, I admire your purity ("Our parents wanted this land, and took it. Now, we are here, but we are not responsible for what they did. We have families and consider this our home. We would like to apologize for the harm they have done to you and ask your forgiveness and cooperation in living peacefully, side by side"). I do not believe this is possible, as the Islamic fundamentalists believe and have stated clearly that the very existence of Israel is an abomination on the face of the earth and that Islam will never accept its existence and must destroy it. There is no diplomacy that can overcome this.

Grammar underlies every known language. It is that which allows us to communicate, expressing complex thoughts. It is what separates us from animals. It is hard-wired into our brains as is counting sheep. Words and the sounds that comprise them, on the other hand, are totally random and change from region to region. This, according to Noam Chomsky, renowned linguist.

It is quite astounding therefore that grammar is nowadays seldom taught in American schools, even while the need to communicate effectively still exists. Tutoring (especially in grammatically accurate sentence construction) has become one of the fastest growing off-shore outsourcing endeavors. It seems that people living elsewhere are now more adept at the tutelage of grammatical principles (where the need for it might exist) than, say, the DOE, for example.

All this is an admittedly cumbersome way of saying, "Kenneth, I don't have a clue as to what you're talking about." Additionally, comparing Gaza with bin Laden may not be a "category error" after all. The similarities far outnumber the differences. It is merely the logical extrapolation of lethal intent. Please re-read Ryle's "The Concept of Mind" (1949) for clarification.

Mr. Koelliker, I found your post quite provocative, especially the passage about the outsourcing of grammar instruction. It is well that the liver of Miss Rice, my hard-drinking but stern tenth grade English teacher, gave out before she could see this country arrive at such a sorry pass. In my reading I am daily reminded of the wisdom of that fine lady, who made our class virtually memorize the whole of Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style” and in particular bade us pay attention to Chapter Thirteen, “Omit Needless Words.”

Now, let’s see if I can make the points of my earlier post clearer.

“1) While extremism in the defense of liberty (or Israel, for that matter) may be no vice, it wins neither elections nor arguments, and is therefore a species of self-indulgence.”

By the above I meant that, in a political discussion, mean and wild talk achieves nothing, save to discredit the cause on behalf of which it is employed. Anyone stooping to its use ought to know this, but since such a person chooses to lower the tone merely for a chance to look tough—in a mirror, anyhow--rather than to persuade, that makes him guilty of self-indulgence.

What falls under the rubric of mean and wild talk? One example might be when an unfortunate poster attempts to make some point or other--whether said point happens to be correct matters not, so long as it is of sincere intent and expressed in civil fashion--and for his politesse is rewarded with the suggestion that he ought to move somewhere else, usually overseas. Sometimes he is even urged to march alongside terrorists.

“2) As an intellectual exercise, let me recast--clumsily, I fear--the first two sentences of the second paragraph of your 10:12 pm post in the lexicon of a thankfully bygone era:

"‘In contrast, the USSR does not visit, and never has visited, such inhuman atrocities on imperialists, or even on the Trotskyite terrorists it captures and imprisons. That's why there are more than enough fascist and subversive prisoners alive in Soviet Gulags to become objects of international pity from the gullible and the brainwashed, not to mention the bigoted.’"

Or to put it another way, some arguments, as the saying goes, do not even rise to the level of being wrong. How many times have we heard talk show hosts, Mr. Batchelor happily excepted, confront opponents of the Iraq war with the rhetorical question, “Well, don’t you support the troops?” When the caller then attempts to say why he thinks the war is bad idea (again, whether the caller is correct is irrelevant to my point), he is invariably interrupted in mid-sentence, and asked once more, “Well, do you or don’t you support our troops, yes or no?” Such low, dishonest disputation can be used to defend any war, just or not, which makes it a tactic that lovers of truth must therefore avoid if they are to avoid error.

(If I had enough time I’d tell about the time that Sean Hannity, who never reads anything but clippings from the Weekly Standard and therefore had no idea whom he was dealing with, foolishly pulled that stunt on Norman Mailer. All those who loathe political pimps and bullies can learn from the masterful way that Mailer put Hannity in his place.)

“3) To say ‘Gaza is the Osama bin Laden of nations’ is to commit what philosopher Gilbert Ryle called a ‘category error.’ In this case you compare the orchard to a rotten apple.”

If "bin Laden" and "Gaza" do indeed belong in the same (unspoken) logical category, namely, that of those who "just need killin'," to use a phrase from my favorite Clint Eastwood movie, then the question that next faces us is, “How ought we dispose of all those remains?” After all, if we bulldoze a million and a half Palestinian corpses into the Mediterranean, that raises a number of serious environmental issues, does it not?

If a group of people stand outside your house throwing rocks at it daily, and you keep telling them to stop but they continue to throw rocks at your house day after day after day, at some point you're going to quit asking them to stop and instead have these people removed by force. And if they come back a few days later and start the cycle all over again and continue to refuse your calls to stop, your only choice - if you wish to protect your home - will be to step up your removal efforts. And if these people still come back for more, you'll have no choice but to throw everything you can at them to make the go away once and for all.

It's not a very complicated concept.

Yet the world cries for the rock-throwers, for they were only throwing rocks yet you used excessive force to beat them down.

The Arab/Israeli conflict always reminds me of the story about what the lawyer said to the judge while defending the kids that killed their parents: "be merciful, Your Honor...they're orphans."

Please, someone...anyone, show me a logical argument against this analogy that doesn't include a "history gives them a right to be more pissed than you do", or "well, you shouldn't have moved into the neighborhood in the first place." I have my point of view and I do own the house. Stop throwing rocks and I won't have to retaliate. You're never going to get my attention about why you're throwing the rocks without first stopping the practice. Until you do, all your issues, arguments, legitimate claims and grievances will never be considered by me...after all, I'm way too busy defending my home.

AP is still publishing photos of dead children, no missing arms or limbs. No Blood. Occasionally they wrap gauze or WHITE cloth (always looks good on film/TV) around the corpse's head. Childhood mortality is very high in Gaza due to lack of sanitation.

Some Old-Guard newspapers apparently smell a ruse and are not placing these images on their web sites and papers. Small and regional papers are run by interns and just take the photos and stories at face value.

How many people carry pristine, white fabric with them? Wouldn't they use a headscarf they all seem to carry?

Why no blood? Never.

Why no broken or missing limbs?

Why no teens or young adults?

Faces are covered up in the large protests, I wonder if there is an living child actor under the flag of Palestine. Always plenty of flags for an "unorganized protest."

It is obvious that CNN, BBC, and AP are taking these photos and Videos at face value and not questioning the accuracy. The Liberal media knows they can write a juicy story if they have a good picture to go with it. Hammas is more than willing to oblige.

-Wisdom

Mr. Koelliker,

Criticize phantom grammatical errors if you want. Go ahead and deftly refute points never made even as you impute sophistry. I guess we all need something to fill the empty hours.

But for your own sake I implore you to keep in mind that the hand you shake so eagerly may sometimes be laden with diseases, not all of which are visible under a microscope.

Re: Chomsky - That makes us even, I'm a non-practicing atheist.

I have already wasted far too much of my time playing whack-a-mole with Mr. Koelliker. I have deadlines.

As for responding to your posts, don't be absurd. Why attempt to engage in civilized discourse with a man who will, when faced with sincere and polite disagreement, as you were in Senator's case, likely as not tell me to get out of the country and march with terrorists? I'd rather play cards with a cheat.

FWIW, I have found Peter Koelliker to be remarkably easy-going when it comes to those to disagree with his position.

Au contraire, Peter, I listen to socialists and communists all the time. I am extremely curious to find out how a mind could get so warped and decayed as to prefer chains to freedom.

The trap isn't seeing "us" vs. "them". The real trap is forgetting that anyone who believes in communism is someone against whom I must take precautions to defend myself.

No, Peter, you do not despise communists as much as I do. I don't think even Joe McCarthy hated them as much as I do, the evidence being that he gave them hearings. I would prefer to take them out, give them a last cigarette, line them up to save money on bullets, cut them down where they stand, and leave them lying there for the vultures to pick at. And say, "That's for stealing from both my paychecks and my soul all these years and blithely thinking there would be no price to pay for it."

Yes, I see what you mean ... another example would be Albert Einstein who came out in the late 40s with writings that praised socialism as the best possible system for the world's economy.

OK, I'll soften my last message a bit. I wouldn't have called for the execution of Albert Einstein. At least not without a blindfold.....(although, to tell you the truth, if all physicists in the world suddenly vanished without a trace, I wouldn't lose much sleep over it.)

On the other hand, had I been alive then, I would have had no problem writing him a letter telling him he should stick to science and leave the financial world to enterpreneurs, that is, if he wanted to live out his old age in prosperity.

"Half my life's in books, written pages
Living learning from fools and from sages..."

-Aerosmith