Megadeth

Funny, Hamas can't get water, food or power but can get rockets to fire at Israel!

militants, who have launched more than 400 rockets across the border since Saturday, Four days!

Can't get food or water because of Israel but can get thousands of rockets.

Who is wagging who?

waggdogg - As long as the settlements exist, Israel should be resisted. I don't know if the Palestinians have tried peaceful protests like maybe a sit in or tying themselves to something. I am sure Israel would do the right thing if the resistance was peaceful.....not.

Tunnels bring the rockets in. Israel controls the basic necessities. DO the research yourself. I encourage you to look at the settlement map in the West Bank.

i think the US should support neither side adn be an honest brokler for peace. we must condemn both sides for gross human rights violations.

yes, this will be the president-elect's issue to deal with. bush and co., incorporated, has done nothing constructive in 8 years.

How an Israeli academic - professor of Electrical Engineering - sees it:
1: Who remembers that the world hailed when Israel retreated from Gaza 3 years ago? Gaza was about to become the Singapore of the Mid East as the wealthy Arab states were preparing to pour heaps of money into it, but then Hamas took over (which we owe to Bush's insistence on "democracy") and threw it into an age Islamic extremism.
2: Israel said back then when it left Gaza: "We dismantled our settlements in Gaza - we are out - but if you shoot at us from the area we vacated we shall hit back with all our might" but never made true on its promise - until now.
3: Hamas also poses a direct and immediate threat to the stability of the Egyptian regime, through its alliance with the "Moslem Brothers" militant opposition and Iran. If you listen to Mubarak, beyond lip service comments on Israel's action, there is scathing criticism of how Hamas prompted the current crisis by violating the last six-month ceasefire pouring volleys of hundreds of rockets on Israeli civilians days before the action - which left Israel no choice but to act.
4: It is inevitable that Israel address this existential threat from an Iranian-backed terrorist state - "Hamastan" - pouring ballistic fire into Israel, digging tunnels across the border to smuggle in homicide bombers and kidnap soldiers - having delayed our action for three years and having acted indecisively now costs many more lives on both sides (but still far less than if the action were to be further postponed). Why? Since Hamas increased the area coverage of its rockets by a factor of 16 under the cover of the last ceasefire, turning now the lives of 3/4 of a million Israelis into living hell.
5. Even though the death statistics on the Israeli side are low, whole cities are paralyzed and rendered dis-functional as people duck for cover several times a day, families living in terror under the random roulette selecting whether or not not it is their turn to get maimed or killed or have their home destroyed, each time sirens wail. The world keeps counting the casualty scores, which luckily is lower on our side but this is no life for us. In particular, in the Israeli villages and towns bordering Gaza a whole generation of Israeli kids has grown disturbed, mentally wounded, traumatized by years of repeated and continual exposure to the Hamas bombardments targeting them.
5. If left unchecked Hamas was projected to reach Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem with its ballistic terror as soon as the next wave advanced Iranian supplies made it in, as the siege of Gaza has been imperfect and increasingly more sophisticated rockets already got smuggled in, increasing the ballistic range and destructive power of the blasts. That means that if Israel did not act now, it would have had to act within a year or so with tenfold might, in order to address this existential threat to itself and to the stability of the whole Middle East.
6. I view it as the utmost responsibility of my government to protect my fellow citizens, and I have been personally appalled that action has not been taken sooner - but better late than later.

Those with a sense of history recall the San Remo Conference, confirmed by the League of Nations July 24, 1922 and Article 2: "The Mandatory (British) shall be responsible for placing the country (Palestine) under such political, administrative and economic conditions as weill secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion. That objective obviously never happened because the ultranationalist Zionist movement wanted all of the territory of Palestine for itself and democratic principls could go fly a kite. The debacle in Palestine, and the Middle East itself, can be blamed on Zionist as well as Islamist extremism. In addition the heavy handed pro-Zionist lobbying in Washington is directly responsible for our own misguided and misdirected policies regarding that convoluted territory beginning with the Truman administration. Non-Jewish Palestinians have, by and large, been skunked out of their homes, their land, their properties, and not given the 'right of return' much less war crimes compensation for their misery. Further, US foreign policy has, in effect, aided and abetted the rise of extremist Islamist radicalism with glaring examples of our own foreign policy mismanagement in Iran leading to the hostage crisis, the continuing fiasco in the former British Palestnian Mandate, and the unsrupulous branding and markieting of the Third Reich's genocide, murder, violence and ethnic cleansing as the Zionist "holocaust', while those very same Zionists engage in their own versions of such unlawful acts which, in the case of the atrocities of WWII, were at least handled properly by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals and also at Regensburg under that authority. We taxpayers are paying a heavy price for a totally blown Middle East foreign policy over several administrations beginning in 1948. In Palestine there must be moderation, mutual cooperation, and governance insuring fairness, full equality, freedom and justice for all without regard to race, ethnic origin or religion and an end to the extremism and heavy handed political policies by both competing sides. Its time for the international community to step in and administer and management the Palestinian problem - equally, for all.

Those with a sense of history recall the San Remo Conference, confirmed by the League of Nations July 24, 1922 and Article 2: "The Mandatory (British) shall be responsible for placing the country (Palestine) under such political, administrative and economic conditions as weill secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion. That objective obviously never happened because the ultranationalist Zionist movement wanted all of the territory of Palestine for itself and democratic principls could go fly a kite. The debacle in Palestine, and the Middle East itself, can be blamed on Zionist as well as Islamist extremism. In addition the heavy handed pro-Zionist lobbying in Washington is directly responsible for our own misguided and misdirected policies regarding that convoluted territory beginning with the Truman administration. Non-Jewish Palestinians have, by and large, been skunked out of their homes, their land, their properties, and not given the 'right of return' much less war crimes compensation for their misery. Further, US foreign policy has, in effect, aided and abetted the rise of extremist Islamist radicalism with glaring examples of our own foreign policy mismanagement in Iran leading to the hostage crisis, the continuing fiasco in the former British Palestnian Mandate, and the unsrupulous branding and markieting of the Third Reich's genocide, murder, violence and ethnic cleansing as the Zionist "holocaust', while those very same Zionists engage in their own versions of such unlawful acts which, in the case of the atrocities of WWII, were at least handled properly by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals and also at Regensburg under that authority. We taxpayers are paying a heavy price for a totally blown Middle East foreign policy over several administrations beginning in 1948. In Palestine there must be moderation, mutual cooperation, and governance insuring fairness, full equality, freedom and justice for all without regard to race, ethnic origin or religion and an end to the extremism and heavy handed political policies by both competing sides. Its time for the international community to step in and administer and management the Palestinian problem - equally, for all.

Yes, what we need is a Carter II to bring peace to the Middle East like the first one...wait a second, he did bring peace didn't he? After all, he won the same Nobel Peace Prize Al Gore did, and if that doesn't indicate absolute Righteousness, then I don't know what does.

Iowa lad

in 1948 there were 2 states set up in Israel-- Arab and Jew.The Jew getting all the worst part of the country, but they didn't care. they were getting a home land. 5 Arab countries met with the Arabs in Palestine. They said that they were going to invade and that they could either stay and fight or leave. The cowards left and let the fighting up to the others. When they left the Arabs that fought hated their Arab brothers for being cowards and leaving.The so-called " Palestinians " have been living in refugee camps for over 60 years in the Middle East because their Arab brothers hate them for being cowards. We can plainly see that the palestinians are still cowards by hiding behind WOMENS' Skirts and CHILDREN.
Islam was founded in Blood and continues in Blood. Islam is the ONLY major religion where their god REWARDS them for MURDER. Also Remember WHY the Middle East was broken up in the first place--- backing the Germans in WWI. The same people who backed Hitler in WWII. Another fact one needs to remember is that when Muslims are not Killing Jews or Christians or Europeans etc. the are killing themselves--Sunni VS Shiite. they cannot decide who they hate more.Until the World wakes up and smells the coffee to truly see what kind of people we are dealing with there will NEVER be peace.

alan stein - Bad land. They got the coast. Now the are settling the region near the Jordan River in the West Bank. Hardly the bad land that you speak of.

Placing blame in a bar room brawls never solves the problem. ...........

Can't say I would expect anything else from Bush and Cheney. . I will not shed a tear as they go.

"I never felt more SAFE than when I walked UNARMED in the Indian Villages" ~ William Penn during French Indian War