There is no US interest in this mess beyond a general desire for peace in the world.

I have always found Israelis to be generally nice and warm people, but their government, like the current US government, is under the control of ideological whackos.

There will be no embedded videos because they drag down the site loading, which is why I use straight links to the YouTube, or other video sites. Some people still have dial-up and I am already pushing it with the graphics loads.

The new guy in the neighborhood doesn’t get to change the rules for the street.

which is probably why they have the bomb. once you go nukular, it’s a lot easier to dictate the rules.

[next up… now that we can embed lolcats, you’re going to fix it so that we can embed youtubes too, right? 8) ]

Nobody recognizes another nation’s “right to exist”. Nations exist or they don’t – just ask the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Tibet, Czechoslovakia, etc. There is no such right for anyone else, so why does Israel get to expect something no one else has?

The various empires of history kept things “in balance” for extended periods, but they didn’t have a “right to exist”, and disappeared.

The new guy in the neighborhood doesn’t get to change the rules for the street.

Israel is a European country dropped down in Asia. The Israelis keep trying to make it into something it isn’t and are destroying the land to do it. They use too much water, and that’s why they don’t want a Palestinian state, they need the water from the West Bank. That’s also why they couldn’t live in the Texas hill country – it doesn’t have the water of Central Europe that they are trying to be recreate.

The USS Liberty is almost unknown to people who weren’t “in The Game”, but it still burns among those of us who were. John McCain’s father should have provided an air cap after the first attack, we had a carrier available. Multiple attacks against a US vessel operating in international waters and nothing was done.

When’s the last time the US handed out a life sentence to someone spying for Hamas or Hezbollah?

Oh, yes, I have issues with the Israeli government, and it has absolutely nothing to do with religion, and it started with the Six-Day War.

I haven’t been too keen on Israel since I lost some good friends on the USS Liberty which still sticks in my craw.

that last article especially reminded me of the ones who walk away from omelas. the scapegoat theme doesn’t quite fit here, but the walking away because they can no longer stomach what their utopian society does to ensure its survival is aptly parallel.

i’ve long thought that the israelis should give palestine — all of it — back to the palestinians. any who want to stay can become palestinian jews, like the ones who lived there for generations as a [well-tolerated iirc] minority. the ones who still want to be *israelis* can go settle somewhere else. friends who have visited both places tell me that the texas hill country looks an awful lot like israel.