should america support Israel?

[little_monkey]

The policy is to bomb until the enemy surrenders unconditionally. Get it straight before spewing your objections.

And additionally, you said that you find a million deaths acceptable.

Would you like me to dig that up too?

The policy is: bomb until the enemy surrenders. Under that policy, there is a possibility that a million could die. There's a difference between what is a policy and what is a possibility.

Of course, I come to that conclusion by thinking that all indiscriminate attacks are immoral ... not just those committed by Hamas.

You're implying that Hamas attacks and Israeli attacks are on par, and there are not: Hamas attacks are part of a declaration of war, Israeli attacks are a response to those attacks and constitute as acts of defense.

I's not that I'm misinformed, it's just that I don't think it's relevant. You think it is relevant but you haven't proved your case.

You don't see the difference? Socially, the Germans and the Japanese each had strong governments right up to the end of the war which were able to project power into their populations through the medium of military police states, and cow any skeptical citizens into obedience through the implied threat of criminal punishment, amongst other things. Each of those countries had also the "benefit" of a populace given to obeying the government with little or no questioning.

For your information, when Israel launches attacks, they warn the Palestinians to give them enough time to evacuate. Hamas response to that is to tell those Palestinians to stay in their houses, and most Palestinians obey, resulting into greater civilian casualties that feeds into Hamas propaganda. So Hamas can very well project its authority.

Comparing the Palestinian Authority to such governments ignores the very real and very stark differences -- the polity in Gaza is deeply fractured, meaning that the government cannot control the extremists who would likely continue to act against Israel even after a million civilian deaths. The ability of the Palestinians to marshal organized resistance is very limited;...

That's a lame excuse. During the 72-hr truce, no rockets were fired by Hamas, which again disprove your claim. When that 72-hr truce was over, Hamas pulled out of the talks that Cairo had organized, and declared that since their demands were not met, the rocket attacks would continue, and immediately rockets were launched. Hamas is definitely in control of its terrorists.

Nor do I think that they will all fight to the last man, but as I've pointed out above, there will be enough extremists to keep the coals stoked so that the hot spot will not, cannot, die down, so long as escalation is the only answer frfom both sides.

You never going to have a world without terrorists, just like you're never going to have a world without crime. But the situation in the ME goes beyond that simplification. It's a war between two people, and to understand that, you need to know your history - what happened in 1948, what happened prior to 1948, etc. If you have a superficial knowledge, especially if you just know what's in the headlines of present day events, you will get it wrong.

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Benny, if Hamas wants to continue this war, which has been going on since 1948, it's their prerogative, but then accept the misery that war brings along. Don't come home to mama and complain. The other problem is that by stationing their "freedom fighters" among the civilians, there will be large collateral damage, and Hamas is counting on that to win the propaganda war. And that makes Hamas responsible for those casualities, not Israel which has no option but to defend itself. Hamas has a choice: continue their armed struggle or lay down their arms. The second option is the only option for the possibility of a permanent peace.

By "stationing" you mean living at home in their houses instead of standing in open fields waving to drone cameras? I've yet to see journalistic videos of women and children chained to missile factories. How sure are you that this isn't pro-Israel propaganda? It sounds suspiciously like an attempt to demonize-- a more reasonable belief, I think, than that Hamas are deliberately putting their loved ones or community members at risk to save themselves.

Fact: when Israel launches attacks, they warn the Palestinians to give them enough time to evacuate. Hamas response to that is to tell those Palestinians to stay in their houses, and most Palestinians obey, resulting into greater civilian casualties that feeds into Hamas propaganda.

Fact: the blockade allows cement to go through so that the Palestinians could construct their houses, schools, hospitals, etc. Instead Hamas used that cement (an estimate of 600,000 tons) to contruct tunnels so they could smuggle weapons. Not only that, a good part of those tunnels run right underneath houses, in particular schools run by the UN.

As for putting down weapons, do you really feel that this is a reasonable expectation? Do they not have a legitimate case causing them hard feelings since 1948, and should they compound that indignity by surrendering to the ones who demonize them?

The partition of 1948 was reasonable given the circumstances. Palestine was under the Ottoman Empire until the end of WW1. After the treaty of Versailles, it became a British mandate. And at the end of WW2, the UK being bankrupted could no longer afford to administer that part of the world and asked the UN to make a ruling on it before the Brits would depart. You have to realize that between the two wars, there were massacres committed by both groups. And without the British presence, that region would have been in total chaos. So the UN decision was a compromise. Nevertherless when the Jews officialy declared their state, the Arabs - Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the leadership of the Palestinians - all declared war on Israel, and this war is still on. (Only Egypt signed a peace treaty). So you need to take the present events in that context. It's a war that the Palestinians are still waging, and Israel has no other option but to defend.