should america support Israel?

[little_monkey]

Recent events completely disprove your point: there were not ONE but TWO 72-hr truces, and in both cases, no rockets were fired, indicating without any doubt that Hamas has complete control over its fighters in Gaza.

You might wish to read a little:

http://news.msn.com/world/rockets-airstr...-collapses

The article is about the first 72-hr truce. Read carefully: "The Islamic militants resumed their rocket attacks Friday shortly before the 72-hour truce expired..." They waited until the final hour. This was a show of force because Hamas felt none of its demands were met. A clear sign that Hamas is in control.

My opinion is that a country has a right to defend. To quote you, Not surprisingly, it's a pretty widely-shared view.

Of course. The question then becomes, [i]are the defensive actions creating the conditions for peace? And are they avoiding innocent casualties?

How in your right mind can you avoid civilian casualities when Hamas is positioning its fighters right amid the population, when they've dugged the tunnels right underneath residential areas? WTF.

I'd submit that carpet bombing probably doesn't fall under that rubric.

Sure but limited, rectricted bombings have not led to peace. We've had such bombings and short term incursion by IDF for several times, and that has proven to be ineffective. Will it work this time? If it doesn't, then it will be time to try something else.

And forget that during the war, the Japanese were quite willing to Kamikaze (Stat: 3,860 kamikaze pilots died in that war).

So what? Bombing Hiroshima or Nagasaki didn't address kamikazes at all, nor were they intended to do so. We're talking about the morality of killing civilians in war, not the use of suicide fighters against military targets.

This is a red herring.

No it's not, it was to highlight the determination of Japan to fight to the last man. Anyway it's totally ridiculous to argue that other alternatives would have produced less casualities. You can't prove it, you're just grasping at straws.

No one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to post. You're the one who jumped in and started to spew your left-wing Palestinian apology.

Lol, firstly, I'm not "left-wing", secondly, I'm not an apologist for Palestinians. I was hoping you'd be insightful enough to have a good discussion; but you generate more heat than light. I think iit's a good thing to look at an issue from all sides, and I had hoped you'd be able to do so.[/b]

I won't make that mistake again ... I've taken your measure, now.

If it sounds like a duck, walks like a duck, it is a duck. Your apologies for a group of people that has waged war on Israel from its birth in 1948 is well noted.