Thank you Marc, for a sober analysis. I believe Israel wants peace, and politics by Hamas is stopping peace. It is irrational. It is the politics of national hatred and will never allow for peace and growth. They want to remain stuck in despair. I do believe Israel should try a less aggressive offensive such as a blockade that doesn't allow rockets and weapons, and allows for the Palestinians to get on with their lives. Hamas has to learn to get along.

Well, truthout and Mr Ash seem to have reached a new low with this piece, which even outdoes the mainstream media's tendency to lie on this issue. According to Norwegian Dr. Mads Gilbert, speaking on The Early Show on CBS, what we are witnessing is "an all-out war on the civilian population in Gaza." Dr Gilbert says his emergency medical facility sees about one Gazan fighter for every several hundred casualties (dead and wounded). To be far outdone by CBS in allowing the truth out is quite an accomplishment, Mr Ash. This massacre has nothing to do with those silly rockets, and you know it. To say "Hamas should stop" when we are witnessing a slaughter of proportions unusual even for the IDF is beneath contempt. Shame on you.

Does anyone really know 100% who is firing the rockets?

Get along? Didn't Hamas participate in a six month cease fire with the expectation that Israel would lift the almost total blockade on Gaza? While there were violations on both sides (including the continuation of settlement expansion on the West Bank) the cease fire held until early November. And, Israel did not lift the blockade. To the contrary by all reports over the last 18 months its troops were engaging in 18 mock urban warfare in preparation for an invasion of Gaza.

Marc, you are missing something big. Whenever things are calm, they are calm for Israel, and Palestinians continue to suffer. When the last truce was in effect, Hamas respected it. Israel did not: 1) the economic blockade wasn't lifted as it was supposed to be, and 2) Israel bombed gaza on november 4th. This is well documented, and the numbers are even cited on Israel's mfa website! It's nowehre to be found in any mass media. It just goes to show how very very very short the memory of journalists are. Far from me to suggest that Hamas are being wise, but the notion that if they were, things would be different is complete nonsense. The Israeli fanatics are at least as equally responsible for triggering hostilities. It is however revealing that most journalists and leaders are appealing to Hamas rather than to Israel for a de-escalation. Could it be that Hamas is more likely to be reasonable?! :-)

The Palestinians surely realize, after forty years, that the "international community" is not riding to their rescue, no matter what they do. The "international community" has given Israel a blank check. The Palestinians are on their own. Their choice is to accept the role of untermenchen in Greater Israel, or to fight, however feeble their means. I don't think we're in a position to criticize their choice.

Israel's idea of peace is Gaza to the West Bank with any needed genocide applied. It has never been anything else.

What would be your advice to a woman being raped? I assume you would say that she should just submit, so that her attacker will stop beating her up. After all, she is going to get raped whether she resists or not.

Hatred? Irrational? No, these days you have to fire home-made rockets to get anyone's attention. If the Palestinians didn't resort to that, they would be ignored for another 40 years and into oblivion. Give them their land back, tear down the Apartheit Wall and put the Zealot settlers on trial for disturbing global peace.

Within the sick way our society is now working to stomp on the victims and bordered by the psychopathic killer ways and means of the Israeli genocidal machine, Marc does a very good job at asking the few extremists (of which IDF is killing few or none) to stop behaving like tantrumized babies - they are banging their heads on the floor but the Palestinian people are getting the bruises! Thanks, Marc!

Ah yes, the good old "stop hitting yourself!" remark raises its ugly head again; a timeless classic used by bullies since Cain used it on Abel. If the Palestinians would only stop their lame useless attempts at defending themselves and just let the Israeli army pound them to dust the international community would finally be SO appalled that it would guilt-trip Israel into just giving the Palestinians territory back. Palestinians have played the victim card but it's just not as effective if you're still TRYING to fight back. So there you go Palestinians, stop hitting yourself and the Israelis will let up as soon as you say "uncle". In my school-yard days you had to say "uncle sam" and "aunt sally" before they let up on you, so consider yourselves lucky.

Marc Ash is way of base on this! I didn't expect Mr Ash to be making such comments and putting the blame squarely on the Hamas. How has he forgotten that Hamas was a creation of Israel and the US as a counter to the Fatah and PLO! The continuous embargo and blockade of Gaza had been going on during the so-called ceasefire and Hamas' authority in the Gaza was systematically undermined by the Israeli govt.

With all the sympathy in the world for the Palestinians for the injustices done to them, it is difficult not to wonder at the motivation of leaders who are reportedly claiming victory over Israel. No rational person can doubt the cruelty done to Palestinian Arabs by Zionists and their backers over nearly a century. But responsible leaders don't keep urging their people to do collective suicide, much less from a sense that they're winning this battle. It is always painful to watch Palestinian and Arab spokespersons argue their case in public.

While the article was rational from a certain point of view, it didn't actually explain some of the facts on the ground. Hamas had observed a truce, but Israel continued its oppression of the Palestinians in the Gaza. The Palestinians of all stripes, not just Hamas, have tried to accomodate Israeli demands on numerous occasions, but to no avail. Abbas has practically prostituted himself, but the Israelis continue building illegal settlements on the West Bank and continue with their control of movement by the Palestinians in their own territory. Granted that firing rockets doesn't do any good, but it is an excuse, not a reason for the attack. There is no question that the Israelis would have found some sort of pretext or other to attack the Gaza, just like Bush would have found some excuse to attack Iraq, since this offensive was planned long ago. They are doing it now while Bush is still lameducking because they know that they have US support that will be missing under the next administration. The rocket fire is irrelevant. My question is why does Marc think that acceding to Israeli demands is going to induce the Israelis to play nicely when it has never done so before?

Wow, I never thought I'd see Marc Ash write in defense of Israel! Maybe he's Jewish? However, there are many of the Jewish faith that are as outraged as I am at what Israel is doing and has done to the Palestinians since day one. I am not saying its OK for Hamas to lob rockets, but what else do you do when you are starving and dying in a refugee camp? If Israel would just take a few diplomatic steps that should be made by any decent democratic, wealthy country then I believe Hamas would agree and there would be peace. Honestly, who doesn't want peace??

I'm sorry, but this is utter nonsense. It is the abuer's perspective" "Stop making me beat you!" Here is the reality: In the West Bank Israel and the US have everything they have demanded from the Palestinians. A weak, docile leader loyal to foreign interests, no rocket attacks, only limited Palestinian resistance and yet, yet ... the targeted killings continue, the raids continue, the closures continue, the theft of land continues, the humiliations continue, the settlements grow and Jewish only roads continue to be built, and there is no peace. In other words, all that the Israelis really demand from Palestinians is that they disappear quietly. The focus should not be on the victim but the aggressor: Israel.

More of the same. What does Marc want Israel to give up or quit doing? Israel has treated the Arabs like dogs but the dogs are not to bite back.

Israel's government and the vast majority of it's people want the Palestinians to have an independent country. Hamas and a large percentage of Palestinians (Gazan's, overwhelmingly, voted for Hamas) do not want a 2 state solution and are dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Israel wants a permanent peace with a Palestinian state. Hamas wants peace only after Israel is destroyed or commits suicide. They attacked Israel from almost day one after Israel, unilaterally, left Gaza. They broke the cease fire consistently and only thought of the cease fire in terms of arming themselves so that they could destroy Israel. They spent their resources, in that time of "quiet," on long range missiles rather then helping their people. They have blocked every peace initiative by targeting and killing Israeli citizens. I agree, that Israel is not faultless in the wider issue of producing a 2 state solution. Their settlement activity has been a deeply flawed and immoral activity. But it is correct in protecting it's citizens by "taking on" Hamas.

Zionist Spin So, it's all Hamas' fault? False. Israel broke the cease fire on November 4, the US election day, when the world was looking elsewhere. The provocations, as usual, came from the Israeli side according to plans long held and deliberately crafted so that the uninformed would automatically blame the victims (Palestine) for the latest round of Israeli state terrorism. This is a long and despicable pattern. American Jews "should stop" their mindless parroting of Israeli lies. Hamas should start targeting their rockets on military targets. What they are doing is useless militarily, and morally. Why lower yourself to the standards employed by the Israelis? Like indiscrminate bombing and terrorism? "The international community has long sought reform of Israeli military and social policy towards Palestinian lands." Yeah sure. That's very comforting when you're starving in the cold due to a military siege, and randomly bombed from the air. Israel should be isolated and cut off from all military and financial aid. Period. Their policies are no different than the Nazis, and very reminiscent of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Here is a diary entry of 1940, written by Yosef Weitz, former head of the Jewish Settlement Agency: "Between ourselves, it must be clear that there is no room in this country for both peoples....The only solution is Eretz Israel, at least the Western Israel, without Arabs, and there is no other way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neigboring countries - to transfer them all - not one village, not one tribe should be left." Excerpted from Chomsky, "Middle East Illusions".

Imaginal exercise: The Palestinians send no rockets or mortars or suicide bombers for five years so that it is indeed apparent they have decided to not use violence. What do you think Israel will do? or Hamas recognizes the right of Israel to exist, Israel evacuates settlements, accepts no right of return and compensation instead for loss of land and assets and agrees to two state solution along 67 borders? What do you think Israel will do? hint 1/3 of Israel's water supply comes from the aquifer beneath the West bank so that technically morally legally said water belongs to the Palestinians. So do you think Israel wants peace and hence would withdraw from the settlements and risk Jewish terrorism? or do you think Israel actually requires violence from Palestinians so they can continue to fulfil God's will by regaining control of all of Judea Samaria for only then will the Messiah come? Meanwhile, fundamentalist American creationists can't wait for the Jews to regain Judea-Samaria for only then will Jesus return a second time. And they say Islamic fundamentalists are crazy.....

the first, and easiest, thing to be done to save lives, is for Hamas to stop locating themselves among innocent citizens. whatever else is done or not done, why are they not being called to account for that? btw, the code used to determine whether the poster is human or a machine is UNREADABLE!

I'm thrilled that Paul, the writer of the "Imaginal exercise" comment is clairvoyant enough to tell us how Israel will still behave exactly the same when others take the minor step of "recognizing its right to exist" (explicitly admitting that such a basic recognition has not yet been proffered).

Wars are caused by fear. Israeli wars are caused by fear of losing advantage. Israeli paranoia and megalomania are the leading breeders of anti-semitism.

The Palestinian resistance, including Hamas, did stop, and for prolonged periods, many times since before there was Hamas and after, only to see the blockade intensify, and so the assassinations, demolitions, land seizures, road blocks, the apartheid wall, the deliberate and systematic undermining of all that can be used to sustain life for the Palestinian people as people and on the level of individuals. Apologists for Israel as a racist state can always call on the victims to die peacefully, but alas: even animals refuse to do so, and the resistance continues. If history teaches anything, it is that Israel has either to exterminate the Palestinians and the rest of the Arabs as the Europeans did to the natives in our America and in Australia, or face its end as a colonial, racist state, as South Africa did. Choose you side.

There are few rational voices in the wilderness when it comes to discussion of the Israel/Palestinian problem. The vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians are anything but religious fundamentalists and want only peace - a truth that applies to all ethnic groups and nationalities around the world. It is only the few that are afflicted with megalomania, fanaticism and greed that cause the conflicts like we see now in the Middle East. Regarding the current conflict, there are no blameless parties. But anyone who has children as I do should be motivated to want to see a true and lasting end to this conflict, for it really does not matter if a child is wounded or killed by an Israeli artillery shell or by a Qassam rocket launched from Gaza. The Palestinians never had their own country - Palestine was a British mandate carved out of the collapsed Ottoman Empire. A UN resolution in 1947 established the right of the Jews to establish their own independent country in what was at the time called Palestine. Did the new country of Israel pursue some unjust actions against the Palestinian Arabs there, such as expropriation of property - sure, there was some of that. But many Palestinian Arabs were also allowed to assume Israeli citizenship and maintain ownership of their property as well. Were/are there radical Zionists in Israel that expropriated occupied land in the territories won during the 1967 war - sure, but also note that these radicals receive a large part of their support from US based Zionists and Christian fundamentalists that want to cause Armageddon to become a reality. Israeli authorities have since been involved in shutting down many of these Jewish settlements. They have also supported the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of the territories won in 1967, thus working toward a frequently heard Arab demand to return Israel's borders to where they were prior to 1967. The bottom line is that both Israel and an independent Palestinian state have rights to exist, and any calls by one of the parties to wipe out the other can be seen as nothing other than a declaration of war with its unfortunate consequences. Hamas used the Israeli assassinations of Hamas leaders as the reason for their rocket attacks, but Hamas had to know that there would be a response from Israel when they call for its destruction. Why does Hamas not recognize the right of Israel to exist? Can it be because of strings attached by supporters from outside Gaza? Such support comes not only from Iran (yes, Iran supports Hamas too), but also from sources inside Arab countries that were engaged in the three wars against Israel. But these same Arab countries directed the majority of Palestinians to retreat to the refugee camps that they now occupy, with only Jordan among them agreeing to accept any appreciable number of refugees. In most Arab countries, the Palestinians are viewed as "untouchables", only to be used and abused by same in their continuing low-level proxy war against Israel. This can be evidenced by Egypt's refusal to allow Palestinian non-combatants to leave Gaza via the Egyptian border, and there has certainly been no call from other Arab countries to assist in this regard either. That makes them accessories to and accomplices in the deaths and injuries being caused to non-combatant Palestinians in Gaza. If Arab countries want peace in the Middle East, they would also work towards eliminating Hamas and providing real assistance to the Palestinians. If the US wants peace there, they need to stop the flow of support from US based Zionist organizations to the Zionist extremists in Israel. This makes a solution to this problem a political one that must be realized outside of Israel. But the question is: do these outside players really want peace, or do they consider their proxy conflicts more important? In the meantime, the children continue to die.

are you kidding me? - i just read about the attack on the school today (not to mention the attack on the mosque during prayers) - what do you want the Palestinians to do, quit defending themselves? - because from where i'm sitting, they're fighting to keep themselves from being annihalate what would you do if you were them? - sit back and take it?

Sad....I read the comments on this article and people yell and scream that it was Hamas who had stopped the fighting and were honoring the truce and that it was Israel who started the current slaughtering. This is after I just read the truthout article "The Monstrosity of War" and then read the comments for that article where other people were saying it was Hamas who broke the truce with their rocketing into Israel.... "A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge." -Carl Sagan Hopefully, the sooner, the better...

One statement in this article stuns me. "Israelis have failed utterly to become a part of the fabric of life in the Mideast." Israeli's have failed? Israel existed before there was ever anything known as Palestine, and did so for over 4000 years. it wasn't until the ottoman Empire that Old Israel was gobbled up, along with Syria and most of the rest of the region. Hebrews continued to live among Arabs, specifically Muslims after Islam became a religion. During all that time there was never a Palestine as a country, only a region, after the region of Canaan was occupied by both Arabs and Hebrews. Palestine didn't come into being until the British Mandate of Palestine in 1920, and it wasn't until 1922 that the League of Nations sanctioned it. That same league of nations became the UN, and is the very same organization that, in 1948, awarded the land now called the country of Israel. Therefore, Israel has every right to exist, and defend itself, while the "Palestinians" should accept their fate, they have no country, and never did. The Hebrews of Israel have lived there for over 6000 years, why should they give any more than they already have to a group that only existed as part of a treaty and mandate, and was never a sovereign nation? And no, I'm not a Hebrew, or Israeli, but I can certainly look at the facts, and what has transpired throughout history.

First thought is Jim Croce's "Leroy Brown" and spitting into the wind or pulling on Superman's cape. But the reality is, Israel's number one industry is weapons manufacturing and war, by state owned industries, so do they really want peace? Israel has attacked all its neighbors, and the United States Navy. From Joshua using a whore to open the gates and destroy Jericho and kill every man woman and child, the history of this small disgruntled tribe, who are tribal brothers to their Semitic neighbors the Arabs and Philistines, have never sought true peace. The war against Ottomans, then Britain was horrible and brutal, and it was the "poor picked on" Zionists who were the terrorists. Anyone who shoots back at them is "evil"????It is time to cut the U.S. ties completely, and have the world treat them as they did Saddam and any other "terrorist state" that repeatedly attacks their neighbors in "preemptive" wars and attacks.

To "23:35 — Anonymous": A lot was said in your comment and I want to make a few remarks about what you said. First of all: your remark that "Hebrews continued to live among Arabs". Of course they did Arabs ARE Hebrews. Hebrews are descendents of Abraham. This simple mistake is very telling about the rest of your entire argument. In fact, who is MORE Hebrew, descendants of Abraham who have always lived on the same land (ever since Abraham travelled there from Iraq), or people who's ancestry for the past few thousand years has been primarily European and often have blue eyes? In other words, in regard to your statement that "Israel existed before there was ever anything known as Palestine, and did so for over 4000 years.", ironically, current Palestinians can claim more of the genetic blood line from those former Israelis than most current "Israelis" can. Contrary to Holywood myth, Jesus DID NOT have blue eyes. If he did, it would have been so strange that it would have been mentioned in the bible. Let's suppose by "Hebrew" you meant person who practices Judaism: well, it is true that before 1948 they got along well with Muslims for hundreds of years. That's because the Jews who lived peacefully among the Muslims of the region were not there as Zionists and hadn't arrived from a foreign land SPECIFICALLY to claim that the land was entirely their own. They were a small minority, and the Muslim majority treated them well. I think some of the first settlers in the U.S. were treated well by the "Indians", before it became apparent what their true intentions were as well. Now about your comments that "During all that time there was never a Palestine as a country" and that "'Palestinians' should accept their fate". I guess this is the old "you didn't put your name on it so it wasn't yours" argument. The Palestinians were not masters of their own destiny and did not control the very land they've lived on SINCE THEY WERE THE ANCIENT ISRAELIS. The British ruled over them, the Ottoman's ruled over them, so why should they complain that a few million Europeans came to their land within the last 150 years specifically to claim it as their own as though no one had been there all along? You'd think they'd be used to it by now. Here's where the "Americans" vs. "Indians" analogy becomes very apt again. I know, I know, if the "Indians" really wanted to claim this land they should have called it "India", right? Palestine, by the way is a Roman name. These people have been SO out of power for so long that they couldn't even NAME THEMSELVES. And there's the crux of your argument. Since they didn't have the military might to push out invaders ever since before Jesus was born on that same land, then they did not exist (including Jesus) and had no claim to the land they obviously didn't live on. MIGHT MAKES RIGHT - BUT IT DOESN'T MAKE A AN AWFUL LOT OF SENSE. I guess it doesn't need to.

Lie #1 "I think Israel have very right to defend itself against rockets fired at it. " Israel is the aggressor. It has always been the aggressor. Israel broke the cease fire. Not Hamas. Aggression is not defense. "If Hamas had stopped firing rockets then Israel would have opened the supply lines. If Hamas stops firing the rockets Israel will stops it's military activity." This is not true. The "terror card" is Israel's justification for invasion, displacement, strategic goals. If Hamas does not act (as it didn't for 5 months prior to Nov. 4, 2008) then Israel simply provokes a response with bombings and assassinations. Even if Palestinian resistance targets Israeli miltiary targets, as in the 4 captured soldiers in 2006, that were arguably in Lebanese territory -- still this is labelled by Israel as "terrorism" (the capturing of invading soldiers?). Basically, to hold the view of the poster quoted, one would have to be pretty ignorant of Israeli strategy and history for the last fiew decades. And ignorant of Israeli strategic goals, and the means they legitimize their illegitimate, illegal actions.

I am ashamed to belong to the human race.

Good God almighty, the anti-Jewish bigots are out in force in this thread. All of you who blame Israel exclusively for the current fighting in Gaza are flat wrong. Hamas bears that responsibility overwhelmingly, thanks to its incessant acts of war against Israeli civilians. The entire situation has grown to where it is today because of Palestinian violence. From armed attacks and pogroms carried out against Jews in the 1920s, to terrorist attacks carried out with the help of Jordanian military forces in the 1950s and 60s to the so-called "Intifada" from 2000-3, it has always been the Arabs who have been the aggressors. And each time they they have started a war, they have lost. They have no moral right at all to whine and complain when Israel finally decides to defend its citizens against acts of war, including the present. And rockets bearing explosive warheads are not in any way self defense when fired at kindergartens, senior centers and hospitals. And any complaints about the so-called proportionality of those responses are disingenuous at best. Particularly when, as is the case in the latest round of fighting, Hamas members routinely hide inside civilian buildings and behind women and children as they fire their rockets, mortars and missiles across the border into Israel. I just watched several videos showing Hamas gunmen firing mortar shells from the front steps of the same UN school that was struck today with great loss of life. When combatants engage in hostilities from inside civilian buildings, using human shields, that is war crime under current international law. Hamas may also be legitimately elected, so far as that goes, but that also makes them even more culpable for the ongoing violence and their flagrant violations of the last cease fire. Anyone making apologies for a violent and genocida groups like Hamas must have their motivations seriously and stringently questioned. What has Hamas done to help the Palestinian people? That's the question these bigots need to ask.

Here we go again. If you criticize Israel you are an "anti-Jewish bigot" or anti-Semitic. David Hickson, I am tired of this. I am Jewish and appalled at what the Israeli government is doing. American Jews are completely uncritical of Israel. There is much more debate in Israel than here. Stop calling me a bigot.

Human shields? Hiding inside civilian buildings? Cowardly! I bet the Israeli army would prefer that the Palestinian resistance fighters would line up in an open field, after digging their own graves, so they could conveniently be machine-gunned down. A little difficult to find open space in an area 1/3 of L.A. though and with a population of 1.5 million, but Hamas should try to separate itself from the civilians - oh, sure.

Unless the people of Israel decide that the Palestinians have equal rights, which is about as likely as a 1850's plantation owner freeing his slaves, there will be no peace in the area. There is truly, as President Carter so bravely pointed out in his book, a policy of aparteid in Palestine that is as brutal as anything perpetrated during the rule of that other white supremacist regime, the one in South Africa. At the base of the problem is the refusal of the people and government of Palestine to agree that the Palestinian people have the right to exist in Palestine and that they are entitled to self rule and to control of their lands, their water, and their borders. Israel refuses to do this and then blames the people and the emasculated Palestinian bureacracy (a democratic government is not more permitted). How can people blame a people that have been systematically victimized for more than 50 years for fighting back with the only means they have available? Do they really expect the Palestinians to bury their dead sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, and then quietly crawl off into the desert to die?

Jesus Christ Israel had a three year embargo on humanitarian aid because Hamas was elected by the people, something that doesn't even happen here in Amerika. How long do you think you can starve people into submission? The little told fact is Hamas is an Israeli creation! A creation to counter the PLO. Israel always creates a Hegelian dialectic in the Muslim/ Arabic world. Israel wants all the land in the region and will commit ethnic eradication to do it

"While Israel's response has been excessive, just what were Hamas expecting?" This is the lie that Israel is "responding" rather than executing pre-planned military operations. Israel's lies cannot sidestep these crimes against humanity, and ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. Further, no one has yet proven that Hamas even fired any of the rockets. It is just assumed in the Zionist controlled press. And again, it was Israel (as usual) that broke the cease fire, not Hamas. Israel's war crimes continue with the bleating approval of US zionists. Grow a conscience.

Obviously, Hamas should stop. But, many of the rocket -firings of the past couple years were by palestinian Islamic Jihad, which Hamas may have some influence over. The Israeli "response" is not only disproportionate, but within the context of keeping Gaza in a cage, is really criminal.

Depite all that's been said, I still believe that Zionism is, at best, a typically nasty deadbeat variant of a Central European nationalist corruption centred on an imagined people with an imagined history who, as luck (an possibly God) would have it, were and are, in reality, bound very loosely by some real, distinctive and valuable religious traditions. I also believe the modern gangster state of Israel is the absolute anti-thesis of Herzl's essentially humanitarian nationalist vision of the Jews'-State which he outlined in both "Der Judenstaat" and his novel, "Altneuland". It is also obvious that Israel is locked on course for its own destruction, like so many other states in the past and, I've no doubt, so many other states in the future, because, in the circumstances, it is the only rational outcome of a tragedy that's been in the making since the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916.

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." - Samuel P. Huntington